


Murphy's Law: Jamie and Tyler

by HannahJane



Series: Murphy's Law [3]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: And Tyler, Complete handwaving of security protocols, F/F, F/M, Fake Relationship, Gen, Girl!Jamie, I don't really know what this fic is but it took me two years to complete it so..., Murphy's Law, Questionable relationship and life choices, Someone just needs to hug Jamie, disaster humans, disaster humans in love, rule!63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 16:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20910503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HannahJane/pseuds/HannahJane
Summary: And here Jamie had been thinking she’d somehow manage to be able to be the interim head of security for the Dallas Stars without running into the franchise’s star player.





	Murphy's Law: Jamie and Tyler

**Author's Note:**

> If you've reached this fic by googling yourself, please click the back button. This is purely a work of fiction. 
> 
> To anyone who's been waiting for this story... bless you. Your silent good vibes out into the universe have lead to be finally being able to finish this monstrosity. This is for you guys.

**There is a code of silence in law enforcement... until Internal Affairs, the news media, and lawyers get involved**

Jamie goes for lunch at the usual time, 11:45 on the dot, racing down the block to the corner bodega for Cup o’Noodles and a mocha flavored Monster. The stray cat that hangs around the alley dumpsters chirrups at her from the darkness and she pauses for a few minutes, carefully juggling her sad dinner to scritch under its chin. The cat chirrups again, winds around her calves and then lopes back into the darkness, leaving Jamie standing there with white cat hair on her slacks and a lukewarm styrofoam cup in her hand.

“Cool,” she says into the darkness and begins the trip back to work.

10 minutes later, she steps back onto the floor, clicks her earpiece on and promptly has her eardrum assaulted by Eric's panicked voice yelping, "oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.”

Jamie takes the stairs two at a time, emerging into what could only be described as a literal tempest in a teapot, given the shape and occupancy limit of the VIP section. She sidesteps two women straining to get a better angle on the unfolding drama and gets her first real look at the shit show that will probably take up the rest of her night.

It takes less than 3 seconds to spot the problem, namely that no one had told her that the Penguins had decided to make Lux their post-game spot this particular night. It never fails that where a professional athlete goes, someone drunker and dumber will want to fight them.

After that, It takes less than 5 seconds to spot the server who is white-knuckling her tray behind the protective arm of a rookie hockey player in thick-framed glasses and a grand total of 10 seconds to wish she’d called in sick earlier that day.

Someone says something on the not-hockey side and a hockey player says something back and both groups shuffle a little closer to each other, so Jamie wades into the fray, mind racing as she identifies all the ways that this can go horrifically wrong. There are a lot of ways that things can go wrong and 47% of them end up with a Pittsburgh PD officer taking her statement at the end of the night.

The number of cell phones being aimed in her direction up the percentage to 54%.

Stepping between the two groups and drawing herself up to her full height, she pulls her shoulders back and sets her face in the blandest expression she can muster up.

“Gentlemen, what seems to be the problem here?” She’d warned Munroe that he didn’t have enough staff on for a Saturday night, but he’d shrugged and said they could muddle through. She really hopes he’ll be able to muddle through the scathing editorial on the front page of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette tomorrow about his “den of violence and debauchery”.

Especially now that Pittsburgh’s favorite hockey sons are involved.

The story comes out in a jumble of slurred shouting, but the gist seems to be that one of the non-hockey players had been harrassing the server and Connor "4 Shots and 2 Beers" Sheary had decided to step in backed by a bunch of underage rookies who shouldn't have been anywhere near alcohol to begin with.

The odds of her night ending with the Pittsburgh PD go up another 5 percent as she meets the particularly glassy gaze of a blonde rookie who looks like he’s all of 14.

There’s more shouting and chest puffing which just serves to physically sandwich her between two groups of drunk men and well, Jamie has been awake for almost 20 hours and is so far beyond the end of her patience rope that she’s free-falling head first into irrational rage.

"Hey!" she snaps when someone bumps her from behind, nudging them back a lot less gently than she needs to. Sheary’s head snaps up as she tilts her head towards him, eyes wide behind his glasses. At least there’s one group of drunk people in this room who will do what she says.

"Sit!" Jamie barks in her best Pissed-Off Pricey voice as she stabs her finger in the direction of a nearby bench and Sheary sits down hard, Sestito and Dumolin immediately following suit. The rest of the hockey players shuffle back even further.

That's when the Not-Hockey Dude grabs her arm from behind and leans in with a slurred, "Yeah, that's right! Listen to this bitch!"

Years of guerilla-style ambushes by an older sibling have trained Jamie for all manner of potential combat scenarios, but her least favorite are come-from-behind attacks. To be fair, the man probably doesn’t even realize what sort of reaction he’s triggered, but he certainly does the second that Jamie twists out of his grasp and grabs his hand in a submission hold.

Her would-be attacker drops to the floor with an agonized (and incredibly overdramatic) howl, a sound made all the more obvious by the absolute lack of noise in VIP area where everything had stopped, including the music.

Jamie’s second least-favorite scenario is one where she is the center of attention.

Her captive’s friends shuffle forward as though to come to his aid and Jamie eyes them warily because her only backups are physically holding an entire crowd of people back and she doesn’t trust whatever sort of drunk-fu that the hockey players might be thinking about trying to employ. The bravest (and likely most intoxicated) of the friends finally moves forward as the man she’s restraining starts to cry. It’s a simple matter of shifting her weight on the balls of her feet and physics as she uses the charging man’s own momentum to flip him over her hip and onto the floor, all while firmly maintaining her control hold on the original Not Hockey Dude.

It's a level of badassery that Jamie knows she will never be able to replicate in her life. She’s okay with that because she’s tired and annoyed and already dreading the nightmare of paperwork that this incident is going to produce, including Munroe’s inevitable freak out.

Beauchamps shows up 10 seconds after all the shouting is over with the guys who cover the door and Jamie gladly relinquishes her grip on Not Hockey Dude and steps out of the way to let her coworkers take care of the rest of the clean-up.

A solid body staggers into her from behind and Jamie tenses, adrenaline still high but it's just Sheary draping himself across her back. It’s oddly endearing because he’s about 4 inches shorter than her and he’s sort of just clinging to her in some sort of drunk piggyback maneuver, rubbing his cheek against her shoulder.

"I could have taken them," he mumbles, just loud enough for her to hear over the buzz of the crowd.

"No, you couldn't have," she says, adjusting her stance to accommodate the weight of a drunken hockey player who seems to be having difficulty remaining upright.

"No," he sighs heavily. "I really couldn't have," and puts his head back down on her shoulder.

***

Jamie stumbles through the front door of the house at 3 am, half awake and cursing the entire Penguins organization. After wrangling the mess in VIP, she'd been given the title of “most capable of getting a bunch of drunken hockey players home safely,” a title which she’d only accepted because Beauchamps offered to cover the paperwork. Sheary had proposed twice before passing out with his head in her lap and Murray had tried to tell her why Pokémon Go was the most revolutionary app since Facebook, but he'd had so much to drink that he kept repeating the same sentence over and over again, getting more and more excited about it each time.

The house is dark but Jamie has been navigating the living room in the dark for nearly three years and she makes the trek to her bedroom without a single banged shin or stubbed toe.

Pulling her boots off is a chore because she’s so tired, but she manages to do it without falling over. She doesn't bother undressing, just shuffles to her bed and falls face first into it.

Or she tries to.

Because Jamie's bed shrieks and starts thrashing hard enough to throw her onto the floor.

"What the  _ fuck _ ?!" Jamie growls as a head pops out of  _ her  _ blankets, Dylan Strome, pride of the Montreal Canadiens and Jamie's personal pain in the ass, blinking sleepily at her.

"Shhh," he scolds, dragging down the blanket to reveal the sleeping body next to him, a pile of lanky limbs and all too familiar ugly lime green pajama pants.

"Oh, for fucks..." Jamie mumbles, hauling herself to her feet. Strome shushes her again and she flips him off before snatching the pillow out from under his head and stomping out of her bedroom. Her feet lead her back down the hallway towards the other bedrooms.

"Mrrphhmmm?" Connor groans when Jamie pulls the blankets back and slides into bed next to him.

"Hostile takeover," Jamie mumbles through a yawn and Connor responds the way that he always does when he’s half-awake, by wrapping his arms around her and cuddling close.

In the morning, there will be questions asked about why Connor’s girlfriend and his best bro are puppy-piled in Jamie’s bed, but at the moment she’s too tired to give it any serious thought. She drifts off to sleep a few minutes later, listening to her best friend’s boyfriend’s soft snores in her ear.

***

"Benny, you fuckin’ beaut!” Someone whoops, which is the  _ only _ warning that Jamie gets before she’s crushed by a flying body slam that also bounces Connor out of her arms. He grumbles inarticulately and shuffles towards the other side of the bed, burying his messy blonde head under a nearby pillow.

"Christ, get the fuck  _ off, _ Eks!" Jamie manages to wheeze as a phone is shoved in her face, Eryn’s toothy grin hanging over it. Jamie blinks uncomprehendingly at the picture on the screen, a shot of her mid hip toss, another guy on his knees next to her. If it weren't for the fact that there's a breaking news banner across the top of the picture, she would be tempted to actually like it.

But instead of taking more time to fully admire the action shot, Jamie squirms out from under Eryn and throws herself across Connor, scrambling to get at her phone on the bedside table. 

There are seven missed calls and fifteen text messages on the screen. The calls are from her sister, the texts are from Nikki, and Jamie knows which one she has to respond to first, purely on the merit of genetics.

Jordie is laughing too hard to even speak when she answers the phone after three rings and Jamie sighs, rolling off the bed and trudging back to her bedroom. Behind her, she can hear Connor and Eryn murmuring to each other, the latter probably trying to convince his girlfriend to let him go back to sleep.

“I fucking hate you,” Jamie grouses. There is still a hockey player asleep in her king-sized bed and she doesn't even try to be quiet as she opens drawers looking for clean clothes. There’s a groan from the bed, but honestly, she has more important things to worry about than Strome’s sleep schedule.

“I’m hanging up now,” she says as the borderline hysterical laughter continues because Jordie clearly hadn’t called because she was worried, she’d called because she was a horrible human being. “You are an awful big sister and your scones are dry,”

She hangs up as Jordie’s laughter abruptly transitions to indignant sputtering and shoots another dark look at the man sprawled across her bed before she heads back out into the hall.

Unfortunately, the second call she has to make features significantly less laughing.

“You are a problem child,” Nikki says in lieu of a greeting, which tells Jamie that the other woman is more annoyed than actually mad. Nikki doesn’t call when she’s actually mad, she just shows up with a lockpick and a trip-wire and makes you regret every life decision you’ve ever made. “I’m not even in the office yet and I already have a headache.”

“Oh come on, Nikki,” Jamie says, kicking the bathroom door shut behind her. “You don’t even know what Saader or Jaq got up to last night. There’s still time for me to lose my number one problem child crown.”

Nikki snorts. “Be in the office by 9:00.” The line goes dead.

As far as Nikki conversations go, it was positively warm and cuddly. Then Jamie looks at the phone sees that it’s 8:12 and swears.

* * *

**Do unto others, but do it first.**

Nikki Backstrom will be the first to admit that she is not exactly lacking in self-confidence.

She’s pulled off some of the most difficult heists in recorded history and has never been caught and yet, Nikki always feels a little  _ less _ around Jamie Benn whose sole purpose on this Earth seems to be to give Nikki tension migraines.

Even with what is probably less than 5 hours of sleep, Jamie had rolled into the office at 9 am exactly in a sleek all black ensemble like a supermodel who escaped the runway by way of a motorcycle gang: tall, fierce, and ready to fight the entire world by herself in black stilettos.

In fact, the only thing that detracts from the overall badass image is the fact that Jamie is currently staring drop-jawed at Nikki with quite possibly the dumbest expression ever on her ridiculously attractive face.

“I promise you, she’s usually far more loquacious,” Nikki assures the man on the other end of the phone and watches Jamie’s mouth snap shut so hard that her teeth click, a faint flush coloring her cheeks.

“Well, I imagine it’s a lot to take in,” Jim Nill says with an easy laugh. “It’s not every day that you get asked to be head of security for a major sports franchise,”

‘No shit,’ Jamie mouths and Nikki throws a pen at her. Jamie bats it away easily. 

“So what do you think, Miss Benn?” Nill continues, completely unaware of the fact that his number one draft pick for Head of Security is currently sticking her tongue out and crossing her eyes like a small child.

“Well, it’s definitely an interesting offer,” Jamie begins hesitantly and Nikki can already see the other woman talking herself out of it, can see the excuses that Jamie will make as if they are forming in a cartoon thought bubble over her head. She’s seen Jamie talk herself out of a lot of good things over the two years that they’ve known each other and since neither Carey Price or Eryn Ekblad is around to smack some sense into their third Musketeer, Nikki feels the need to take matters into her own hands.

That’s why Nikki opens her own mouth as Jamie’s lips start to form what is probably a very polite refusal and says, “She’ll do it.”

“Wait, what?” Jamie splutters.

“Excellent!” Nill says enthusiastically, completely rolling right over Jamie’s subverbal fit. “We’ll see you in Dallas tomorrow, Miss Benn. My assistant will make the travel arrangements.” The line goes dead and there Nikki sits once again, Jamie staring at her with that ridiculously dumb expression on her face.

“It’s for your own good,” Nikki says by way of explanation and Jamie’s dark eyes narrow. She holds up a hand to forestall what she’s sure will be an epic Benn rant filled with many single consonant words.

“You’re wasting your talents bouncing at that shit hole of a club,” she says, completely secure in the knowledge that she’s in the right, clicking open the scheduling windows on her computer to shift people around to make up for the break in coverage. “And I can’t deploy you internationally, Jamie. Not after Cartagena.”

“Cartagena was like a year ago,” Jamie growls, fingers twitching on the arms of the chair as if she’s imagining someone’s neck under them. Nikki doesn’t point out (again) that Cartagena was probably the end of Jamie’s international security career even if the woman herself doesn’t recognize it.

“I can’t do it, Nikki,” there’s an edge to Jamie’s voice that Nikki hasn’t heard before and she actually looks away from the schedule. Jamie is staring hard at the floor, jaw tight and her eyes unblinking.

“Can’t? Or won’t?” she asks. They’ve always had a relationship where bluntness is appreciated, but judging by the faint wince that twitches across Jamie’s face, it’s not the right way to go, so Nikki switches tactics.

“And this way you’ll be near Jordie. Weren’t you just complaining about not getting to spend enough time with Alec?” The nephew turns out to be the right move to make because the fight visibly goes out of Jamie, her shoulders slumping as her twitching fingers cease moving. There’s a long beat of silence, Jamie staring down at the plush gray carpet before she sighs again and looks up at Nikki.

“You know, I’m pretty sure there’s at least still one warrant for your arrest floating around out there somewhere in Europe,” Jamie grumbles, scuffing at the floor with the toe of her shoes. “Maybe in one of the old Soviet Bloc countries.”

Nikki just smiles benevolently and turns back to her email.

“There’s a guy,” Jamie starts quietly and Nikki pauses again, but Jamie won’t meet her eyes, so she does the other woman the courtesy of pretending she hasn’t heard anything and soon the only sound in the office is the sound of her fingers on the keyboard and whir of the printer as it starts to spit out the change of position paperwork.

In the end, Jamie doesn’t say anything else, just sighs heavily and starts filling out the paperwork that Nikki pushes at her.

***

The front door slams open and then slams shut, but Eryn doesn’t bother looking up from her tablet. PK Subban is a Words with Friends shark and she’s gonna murder Pricey for giving him her screen name, especially after expliciting telling the other woman  _ not  _ to.

Benny pokes her head into the kitchen, harrumphs like the grumpy old man that she secretly is, and disappears again, muttering under her breath while Eryn tries to figure out what to do with the ‘p, x, and w’ letters that still sit there, mocking her with their difficulty.

10 minutes later out of the corner of her eye, Eryn sees Benny back in the kitchen doorway, a pile of clothes in one arm, her suitcase in the other.

“I’m moving to Dallas,” Benny says flatly and disappears again.

“Cool.” Eryn calls after her, only half-listening as she slides her finger across the screen. “Have fun!”

‘Xi’ can’t possibly be a real word, but it nets her a triple-word score and thirty points against Subban, which she will absolutely take so that when he beats her this time it’s less of a digital blood bath.

That’s when Benny’s words finally hit home and Eryn almost drops her tablet as she whirls towards the empty kitchen doorway.

“Wait, what?!”

* * *

**You will only be subpoenaed to court at 9 am the morning after working an 18 hour day.**

The last minute notice about the Dallas job means that Jamie still has to work at the club that night... and listen to Munroe bitch about being short-staffed as though he imagines that will entice her to stay and continue the glamorous life of breaking up booze fueled fights down by the main stage.

Her 7 am flight gives her exactly 45 minutes to doze fitfully on the couch before she has to catch a Lyft to the airport.

Which means that it’s only natural that she gets the seat in front of the toddler with an attitude problem.

Which means that when she lands in Dallas 2.5 hours later, Jamie is running on less than one hour of sleep, four cups of shitty airplane coffee, and vaguely homicidal intentions that continue to grow each time someone bumps her while walking through the airport.

The man waiting at the luggage carousel has a sign scrawled on the back of a neon yellow flier that reads, “Ben,” and Jamie can tell from his body language that this is a man who doesn’t want to be anywhere near her. She’s pretty sure that misspelling of her last name is a test of unknown boundaries.

“You Benn?” he asks gruffly, eyeing her up and down in a way that she is not unfamiliar with as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated profession. The expression on his face is somewhere between open annoyance and rude dismissal and Jamie gets the impression that she might be the first woman to ever be in a command position over him.

Or maybe it’s because she’d opted for a pair of Converse, jeans, and a simple black polo shirt instead of more “feminine, professional… insert appropriate word here…” garb.

“In the flesh,” she says and holds out a hand, pretty sure that her voice comes out at least halfway pleasant. “And you are?”

“Right this way,  _ Miss _ Benn,” he says and walks away without another word, the sign with her name on it crumpled into a ball in his fist. Jamie’s pretty sure that this job isn’t going to be as straightforward as Nill had made it sound in the first place and she makes a mental note to call Nikki as soon as she gets a minute and maybe just yell incomprehensibly.

“Somehow I don’t think that you and I are going to get along,” she mutters at his retreating back before shouldering her luggage and following after him through the crowded airport.

‘Tom’ - a name that she finally manages to pry out of him - says a grand total of 10 words on the 45 minute drive to the AAC and that nagging feeling that she’s missing some fairly important details about this assignment continues to grow. Once they arrive at the AAC, he leaves her standing in front of the Stars locker room and vanishes with some vagaries about finding someone to talk to her.

Luckily, it’s not Jamie’s first go round at a hockey arena and she follows the smell of cool clean air out to the ice, unbuttoning the top two buttons on her polo as she walks, her footsteps echoing softly in the tunnel. The zambonis are chugging around the arena, and Jamie props a hip against the bench wall, staring out over the expanse of the empty arena, breathing in the smell of fresh ice.

The zamboni driver gives her a friendly smile on his next go around and Jamie gives him a Captain America style salute before slipping off the wall and turning to go… only to run right into the man who had silently walked up behind her while she’d been lost in her thoughts.

Strong arms wrap around Jamie’s body, broad hands spreading across her back to hold her firmly in place and Jamie finds herself pressed completely against Tyler Seguin, their faces mere inches away from each other.

Unfortunately, it’s a position that she’s intimately familiar with.

“Hey,” Seguin says, pouring on the charm, his brown eyes sparkling and a smile quirking up the corner of his mouth, an expression just like the one he’d worn when he’d pressed his room key card into her hand in a room full of his peers at the NHL awards. “Haven’t seen you in a while,”

And here Jamie had been thinking she’d somehow manage to be able to be the interim head of security for the Dallas Stars without running into the franchise’s star player.

Christ almighty, she’s a fucking idiot.

To be fair, Jamie has worked very hard to forget the last time that she had seen Seguin, so she’d forgotten that his voice came from deep in his chest, rumbled out of him like a physical presence. She’d forgotten what the expanse of his chest felt like under her hands and that the gentle strength of his hands still made a tingle race up and down her spine.

The one thing that Jamie has been unable to forget was waking up alone in a Las Vegas hotel room with a hickey on her collarbone and Tyler Seguin nowhere in sight.

“Yeah, long time,” she says, working an arm between the two of them to push against his chest. “You wanna fucking let go of me?”

Seguin’s smile dims instantly, but Jamie refuses to feel guilty. Running into an old fling in a professional setting isn’t a new experience for her, but she thinks that maybe she hasn’t had enough sleep to be managing this particular situation.

“Sorry,” he mumbles and releases her, stepping back until he’s the one against the bench wall. Her back feels irrationally cold where his hands had been.  _ Stop it _ , Jamie mentally chides herself as she takes a further step back and tugging at her shirt to give herself something to do other than blush like an idiot.

“It’s fine.” she says because it is and she is a professional and is absolutely not thinking about how her self-confidence had crumbled when she’d seen him on TV a week later with a delicate blonde on his arm at some red carpet event, a week after he’d brushed her loose hair away from her face and told her that she had a wonderful laugh, a week after he’d held her hand while they watched HGTV in the hotel room and ate room service.

Seguin nods and then his eyes catch something over her shoulder and it’s interesting to see that whatever it is makes his jaw clench. Jamie half-turns, trying to school her features into something that doesn’t scream guilt, but she’s pretty sure that she fails when she finds the charmer himself, Tom, standing at the mouth of the tunnel, glaring like his eyes will be able to set her on fire if he tries hard enough.

It tells her all she needs to know about how much the man has just seen.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” she mutters under her breath and then squares her shoulders and walks towards her new coworker, leaving Seguin behind without another word, which she supposes is poetic in its own right. She doesn’t look back, but she swears that she can feel his gaze on her until she turns the corner.

Tom doesn’t say anything, but it’s a judgemental silence that accompanies them through the hallways to the security office. There are 13 bodies in the room, all wearing Victory green polo shirts and over half of them are wearing expressions that turn downright skeptical when they see her enter the room behind Tom. In fact, the only one who doesn’t look disgusted are the tall blonde women in the corner. The younger of the two women leans against the wall, muscular arms folded across her chest and her attractive face completely devoid of emotion as she tracks every movement.

It’s an expression that Jamie is all too familiar with: extreme discomfort played off as general aloofness.

Her general feeling of unease about the situation that she’s been thrown into continues to grow.

“Hi,” Jamie says, acknowledging everyone with a nod of her head. “I’m Jamie Benn…” it goes downhill from there. The group of men are irritable, dismissive, and their security protocols are akin to a group of parents chaperoning a high school dance, half-assed and focusing on the entirely wrong things. Jamie’s lack of sleep doesn’t help anything and when she gets to the incident reports that come in a 3-ring binder that is roughly the size of her nephew, she loses her temper.

“Are you kidding me?” she snaps, slapping the cover of the binder shut after reading the first half of a report regarding a fight in the beer garden that had only been contained after intervention from a couple of off-duty Dallas police officers. “Who the hell was the moron running this team?”

Like flipping a switch, the men go from irritable to downright hostile, but it’s not a total loss as the young blonde smiles ever so faintly. The older blonde woman who had introduced herself as Kari doesn’t even bother to hide her amusement and openly barks out a harsh laugh. At the very least, Jamie is pretty sure she’d just found a couple of allies against the open hostility buzzing in the room.

The rest of the meeting, her questions are met with grunts and shrugs and by the time Jamie meets Jim Nill, her jaw aches from clenching it so tight. She grits her teeth into a smile as she’s taken into the locker room where the players are gearing up for practice because she understands the importance of a first impression. Seguin makes eye contact for the briefest of seconds before turning his attention back to the tape around his calves. Jamie tries not to feel oddly disappointed by his lack of reaction as she’s introduced to the coaching and athletic staff.

“You always so cranky?” Jamie blinks suddenly, startled out of her thoughts as she leans against the window. The blonde Amazon, who had stuck around after the team meeting and introduced herself as Val, had offered Jamie a ride home. Jamie had taken it gratefully after remembering that she knew very little about Dallas proper and was in danger of falling asleep on her feet. Val sits easily behind the wheel of her oversized SUV, one hand lazily resting on the wheel as she flicks the turn signal on.

“You sound like my big sister,” Jamie groans, trying to get more comfortable in the passenger seat. She’s tired, her head has a stuffed animal quality to it, and there’s a sinking feeling somewhere around her belly button after the day’s activities. Nikki must have been out of her mind, expecting Jamie to be able to handle this all on her own.

There’s a long moment of silence as they wait for the light to change before Val gently clears her throat. Recognizing the statement of intent for what it is, Jamie twists in the seat so she can give her new coworker her full attention.

“Last supervisor was a dick,” Val says quietly, tension in the lines of her broad shoulders.

“Reported him to management for grabbing me in copy room,” Val continues, even quieter and doesn’t look at Jamie as the light turns green and they pull through the intersection. Jamie’s heart gives a sharp twinge at the way it seems like Val’s tensed for a lecture as if it’s something she has already experienced from other people. “They fired him three days ago.”

A number of things click into place in Jamie’s sleep deprived brain and she sighs, folding her arms as realization sets in. Val is watching out of the corner of her eye, probably taking measure of Jamie’s response. Jamie takes a deep breath in through her nose and lets it out through her mouth as she watches the residential neighborhood around them fly by.

It takes a minute to filter through all the rage that she wants to unleash before she shakes her head and turns to Val who is still strung tight with tension, her hands white-knuckled on the wheel. “God, I hope you fucked him up before  they fired him,” she says and watches Val’s shoulders loosen ever so slightly.

It takes until they stop at another light before Val looks at her, a faint flush high on her cheeks.  “I broke his hand.”

Jamie can’t bite back a bark of laughter at that and holds her hand out for a high-five. Val’s smile is positively radiant as she shyly high-fives Jamie back.

The rest of the drive is spent in comfortable silence, Val relaxing bit by bit and Jamie dozing easily against the passenger window.

Benn and Co Bakery is almost empty when they arrive, save for a few college age kids typing frantically on their laptops at the tables along the perimeter. Behind the counter, a bored-looking petite blonde woman sits on a stool, her attention focused on the book open on the counter in front of her.

“Jesus H. Christ, who let you out without a muzzle?” Jamie calls across the bakery and Cam Atkinson -- known to people she’s punched in the face as ‘the little angry blonde one that hit me’ -- glances up, eyes Jamie and Val up and down and goes back to her book with a snort.

“At least I have all my shots,” Cam drawls in response, turning a page in her book.

“ _ At least I have all my shots _ ,” Jamie mimics in a high-pitched voice, unable to bite back a grin. Val’s gaze bounces back and forth between the two of them like a spectator at a tennis match, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

“Jordie!” Cam yells without looking up from her book. Next to Jamie, Val jumps with a little yelp of surprise. “Your dumbass little sister is here!”

There’s a loud bang from the depths of the bakery and a few seconds later, Jordie bursts through the swinging door that leads to the kitchen, her black apron covered in flour and heads straight for Jamie, arms outstretched like a romance novel heroine.

Familiar with her sister’s ridiculous antics, Jamie braces for impact. Not that it helps because when impact does come, it’s really only Val’s arms that keep Jamie on her feet as Jordie tries to crush the life out of her.

“Seriously?” Jamie grunts, trying to worm her way free of her big sister’s too tight grip. “We Skype like every day.”

“Shut up, Chubbs,” Jordie murmurs into her hair and somehow manages to squeeze her a little tighter. “I fuckin’ missed you, you little brat.” Jamie sighs and squeezes back because posturing aside, she’d missed her sister more than anything these last 7 months.

“Y’all are scarin’ the crap outta that poor girl there,” Cam announces from behind them and Jamie pulls back from her sister just enough to be able to see the deer-in-the-headlights expression on Val’s face even as she continues to hold them up.

“It’s okay, kid,” Jamie says, detaching one arm from Jordie and reaching out blindly to pat Val’s shoulder. “We’re mostly harmless.” Then to Jordie, she says. “Jordie, this is Val and she’s having a really bad week. We should feed her some cupcakes.”

Val doesn’t quite yelp again when Jordie’s hug suddenly expands to include her, but it’s a near thing.

* * *

**Your department will always be over budget, and your equipment will always be older than you.**

Jamie doesn't come back downstairs after following Alec to his room for a bedtime story, but Jordie isn't too surprised. Between Alec's insistence that Aunt J read him two chapters of Matilda and the dark circles under her little sister's eyes, she has a sneaking suspicion about the night's sequence of events. She takes her time cleaning up after dinner, turns the dishwasher on, sets up the coffee pot for the following morning and goes upstairs to find Jamie and Alex twisted up together on Alex’s race car bed, the former more off the bed than on it.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Chubbs," she mutters as she leans down to pull Jamie up, her sister sleepily fighting her as Alec remains completely oblivious to the battle happening beside him. “Your life is super extra difficult.”

Finally upright and still dead asleep, Jamie leans heavily against Jordie, her head nodding as they stumble down the hallway to Jordie’s room. It’s been seven months since Jamie has been able to visit and Jordie does not feel great about the drawn look on Jamie’s face. She’s even less thrilled about the fact that Jamie has noticeably lost weight, making it far too easy for Jordie to maneuver her Amazon of a sister into a pair of pajamas and under the covers.

It's been a while since they shared a bed like this - since they used to sneak into each other's rooms at each new foster home and promise each other that they would never let anyone separate them - but Jordie is unsurprised to learn that Jamie still sleeps like a starfish, arms and legs going every which way and hogging all the blankets.

"Listen up, jerkface,” Jordie grunts after trying to wrestle the duvet away from her little sister’s grip results in a sharp elbow to her liver. “I’m not saying that this is the reason why you’re single, but I have my suspicions.”

Jamie makes a garbled half-asleep noise that might be a protest, but this time when Jordie grasps a corner of the duvet and pulls it around herself, she’s met with no resistance.

“If you take all the blankets while we’re sleeping, I’m not making you breakfast in the morning.” she murmurs around a yawn and settles down to sleep.

The breakfast thing turns out to be a non-issue because when Jordie wakes up the next morning, Jamie is gone and her side of the bed is cold. She cracks an eye at the clock on her phone and groans when she sees that it's only 6:45 am.

"Oh my god, Chubbs, you need to fucking chill,” she says to no one at all and hauls herself out of bed with a groan.

Alec talks all through breakfast about how cool Aunt J is and how she said the "f" word when she dropped the book and lost her place and then made him pinky promise not to tell because it was a ‘Bad Word’. Jordie finagles a pinky promise of her own out of her son to not repeat the ‘Bad Word’ to his friends and sends him off to the bus, crossing her fingers that she won’t be getting a call from the principal.

The house is blessedly silent after Alec leaves for school, and Jordie is just settling into the breakfast nook with a cup of coffee and the book that she’s been trying to read for the last two weeks when her phone starts blaring “Friends in Low Places”.

Jordie sighs and debates whether or not answering it will make her an enabler. They’ve long since passed the age where Jordie can beat people up on the playground for picking on her little sister..

The phone stops ringing only to start again a few seconds later. Jordie sets her book down with another sigh and reaches for the cause of the noise.

"Hello?" She answers only to jerk the phone away from her ear at the screech of pure unadulterated anger that she gets in response.

"Fucking fuckballs!” Jamie’s tinny voice reverberates from the speaker and then she’s off on a tirade about the inadequacies of every single member of the male species. Despite having to hold the phone away from her ear in order to not be deafened, Jordie thinks she gets the gist of the call: most of the security team had rage-quit because they had decided that they didn’t like their previous boss being fired, Jamie has only 2 staff left from the original team and there's a preseason game set to take place later that night.

"Chubbs," Jordie says and when it doesn’t get through the first time, she tries again with her Mom tone, the one that freezes Alec in his cookie stealing tracks. “ _ JAMIE _ !” It appears to work on little sisters too because Jamie shuts up so fast that Jordie can actually hear her teeth click together. "What do you need?"

Jamie takes a deep breath, blows it out heavily over the line and says, "You, the Angry One, and whoever else you know who wants to work a game tonight. I can probably get them time and a half because it’s such short notice."

"Anything for you, baby girl," Jordie says, unable to keep from smiling fondly. Jamie sniffles a little and her "thank you" sounds a little watery, but Jordie ignores it for the sake of her sister's dignity and promises to have people there by 10 for a briefing.

Hanging up, she’s clicking on her contacts when the phone starts ring again, Jamie’s picture flashing on the screen.

“What?” she says instead of hello.

“Do not call Sharpy,” Jamie orders, all earlier traces of thankfulness gone. “I mean it, Jordie. Do  _ not _ fucking call Sharpy.”

“Got it. Don’t call probably the only person in the greater Dallas area who knows just about everything about running a security team and can work with you without wanting to rip your head off and play soccer with it. Don’t call  _ that _ person.” Jordie says, rolling her eyes. 

“I thought you two had decided that you could at least be in the same room without wanting to kill each other,” she adds, although honestly, she doesn’t ever think she’s going to understand their relationship. There’s a long pause on the other end before Jamie makes another half groan, half shriek and hangs up. 

Rolling her eyes again for good measure, Jordie thumbs through her phone to favorites and hits call, drumming her fingers on the table until the person on the other end picks up.

"Jamie needs help; you know anyone who wants to break up some fights and hang out with hockey players?”

***

The awkward silence of the conference room is broken sharply by the sound of someone sneezing three times in rapid succession, followed by a groan and the thunk of a forehead meeting the table top.

"Can someone remind me again why Typhoid Mary is here?" Cam asks with her usual bluntness, gesturing at the woman facedown on the table. In return, Jacqueline Eichel blindly offers up a middle finger and then after a beat during which she sniffles piteously, she drags her other arm out from under her body and offers up a second middle finger. Cam’s lips twitch upwards ever so slightly.

"Because this team is short-staffed and Jaq’s been on antibiotics long enough that she’s not contagious anymore," Jordie says from across the conference table with a glare and judging by the sudden way that she’s slid down in her chair, is probably trying to kick Cam in the shins under the table. Completely unphased by the older woman’s attempted violence, Cam rolls her big blue eyes towards the other end of the table.

"Well if that’s the criteria, I guess that would explain why Jamie’s ex is here too," she drawls and any sense of calm that Jamie has been clinging to is ripped away from her. Sharpy looks up from her copy of the schedule with a shark-like smirk, blue eyes sharp enough to cut glass. Jamie facepalms as the eyebrows of those unfamiliar with the disaster that is her love life creep towards the rafters and Jordie just continues to pretend as if she has no idea how the one and only Trish Sharp just happened to show up at the AAC with marching orders to help man a half-assed security team.

"Quick witted as ever,  _ Cammy _ ,” Sharpy says saccharinely sweet, a tone that Jamie is intimately familiar with and Jesus fuck, what had Jordie been thinking, letting Cam and Sharpy near each other? Cam dislikes people in general, but her animosity for Sharpy has been 100% real since the first time Jamie introduced the two of them. Jamie peels her hands away from her face and clears her throat as the look on Cam’s face turns downright lethal.

"Knock it off, you two,” She says with an authority that she doesn’t feel in the least and turns her attention back to the schedule, hoping that her face isn’t as red as it probably is. “Now, does anyone have any questions about the schedule for tonight?”

“Yeah, I have a question,” Kari, one of the few remaining AAC staff to not jump ship pipes up, a wicked glint in her eyes that Jamie doesn’t particularly care for given the already chaotic tone of the room. “Is the ex still single?” the question is followed by a suggestive waggle of eyebrows at Sharpy who simply looks the tall blonde woman up and down far too slowly to be anything other than suggestive.

The rest of the meeting goes pretty much the same way.

Seventy-five jaw-clenching minutes later. Jamie is hiding in the woefully under air-conditioned security office, stripped down to a tank top and slacks while she stares at her ragtag roster, wondering just how she’s gotten in so far over her head. She’s pretty sure if she fakes her own death and flees to Australia, Eks and Pricey will have her tracked down within a week.

In fact, she’s wondering all these things so hard that she fails to hear the pitter-patter of little feet on the industrial grey carpeting and the soft uneven breathing of a frightened child until the hand of said child latches onto the paracord bracelet on her wrist and tugs.

“I can’t find my Daddy,” she’s informed in a tearful wail and that’s when Jamie starts paying attention really fast.

Her visitor is named Danny, he doesn’t know where he is, and he is now in a state of full meltdown, huge gulping sobs shaking his entire body. Reacting like she would if Alec had scraped his knee or had a bad dream, Jamie offers up her arms in the universal gesture of hug and almost winds up falling on her butt when he launches himself at her. The little boy rests easily on her hip in the same way that Alec used to before he turned into a wriggly creature composed entirely of elbows and knobby knees.

Danny’s little arms clutch her neck tightly as he sobs into her shoulder, his knees squeezing tightly around her waist. Jamie bounces on the balls of her feet as she tries to grab the walkie talkie off the desk, but only manages to knock it onto the floor under the desk which does not help at all since she doesn’t think that Danny will let her put him down in order to pick it up.

“Wow,” As if the universe is trying to kick her while she’s down, Sharpy’s amused voice comes from behind her. Jamie takes a deep breath and turns. To her credit, Sharpy doesn’t even blink at the sobbing child in Jamie’s arms, just leans her shoulder against the door and smirks.

“I’m loving the fact that you find this humorous.” Jamie says, raising her voice enough to be heard over Danny’s crying. “Really, it’s not making me want to punch you in the face at all.” Sharpy just shrugs and leans back a little out of the doorway, gesturing at someone that Jamie can’t see.

Jordie appears in the door behind Sharpy a few seconds later, one dark eyebrow arching slowly upwards as she takes in the scene in front of her. Her mouth opens and closes a few times before she shakes her head as if clearing it and pushes into the room past Sharpy who shoots Jamie a wink and disappears down the hall.

Jamie can’t remember for the life of her why she started talking to her ex again. 

“Okay, a: this is not my fault and b: thanks for making me talk to my ex again,” Jamie says over the wailing. Jordie gives Jamie the same unimpressed look she’s given her for most of her adult life and pulls her own walkie talkie off her belt, thumbing it to an open channel.

Danny will not be separated from Jamie short of using a pry bar, but his tears have slowed to the occasional hiccuping sob so Jamie continues to hold him and eventually he tells her that he last saw his Daddy in the locker room.

Jamie had been planning on speaking with the players and staff later that afternoon about the changes in security, but finding an unattended 4 year old wandering around the halls of the AAC means that that conversation will be happening sooner rather than later. Cam walks past them in the hall, stops dead in her tracks as they walk past, and immediately reverses to follow them, hissing questions to Jordie behind Jamie as Danny “helps” her find the way to the locker room.

Kari is posted outside the locker room, leaning one broad shoulder against the wall and when she catches sight of them, her jaw clenches, an expression that Jamie can’t quite decipher crossing her face. Jamie makes a mental note to have a conversation with the other woman sooner rather than later, specifically about the lack of surprise on her face at seeing Jamie with a little brown-haired kid in her arms.

Their little three person party goes unnoticed by the majority of the locker room at first. And then the little human in her arms starting wiggling and shrieking “Daddy!” and without warning, they are very much the center of attention as Jamie puts the wriggling Danny down before she accidentally drops him. The little boy flies across the room, somehow managing to avoid the logo on the floor. Instead of heading towards any of the men that she would have expected to be his parent, he heads straight for the one and only Tyler Seguin.

The only sounds in the large room are the slap of the little boy’s sandaled feet on the carpeted floor and the impact of his tiny body slamming into Seguin’s legs as he begins to implore his father to pick him up.

“Well, fuck,” Cam says in the loaded silence that follows. “Kinda feel like this should have been in the briefing packet, Benny.”

* * *

**Bullet proof vests ** ** _might_ ** ** be.**

Danny kicks him in the ribs as Tyler lifts his son into his arms, but he’s long since gotten used to being used as both a heavy bag and a jungle gym. What he hasn’t gotten used to is finding his son in the company of Jamie Benn.

Especially since Tyler had sent Danny to the park with the nanny less than twenty minutes ago and the nanny is now nowhere in sight.

There’s a harshly whispered conversation happening by the door and Tyler is pretty sure he’s the topic of discussion, based on the speculative looks being levelled at him by the women who’d entered the room with Jamie like a well-dressed wolf pack. Danny is quiet in Tyler’s arms, his four year old senses reading the tension in the room and Tyler would sigh, but Danny has started asking him what’s wrong when he does that and he doesn’t want to add to his son’s anxiety any more than he already has. Honestly at this point, Tyler will just settle for knowing where the ever living fuck the nanny is.

Finally, Jamie steps away from the huddle and nails him to the floor with a look that Tyler would absolutely find hot on any other occasion.

Her hair is shorter now, the undercut more severe and he’s pretty sure there’s more tattoos than there had been in Vegas, but those eyes are still the same, even now when they’re narrowed at him with an almost lethal intent.

“Can I have a word, Mr. Seguin?” the words are phrased like a question, but Tyler knows it’s anything but. He could decline, but at this point, he’s not sure that even Danny’s presence is enough to rescue him from a dressing down in a room full of his teammates.

“Hey, bud, why don’t you go see if Uncle Jase will let you tape his stick?” Tyler says, carefully putting his son on the floor. Danny tears across the room to where Spez is sitting in his locker, looking like he’s not sure if he should laugh or be concerned for Tyler’s physical safety. Feeling like a kid being sent to the principal’s office, Tyler follows the security team out of the locker room, the door clicking shut ominously behind him.

***

Cam Atkinson has seen Jamie Benn superman punch someone unconscious in a fight before.

And even though she’s about 89% sure that Jamie won’t put her job at risk by doing the same thing to Tyler Seguin, she still makes it a point to give her coworker a wide berth as they group around the locker room door.

Luckily for Seguin, who follows after them looking like a man being led to the gallows, Jamie has her sights set on a different target.

“So when I said is there anything that I should know about this job,” Jamie all but snarls, stalking up to Kari who’s still posted outside the locker room and stabbing a finger into the larger woman’s chest. “I meant, does the door to the security office stick,  _ not _ is the franchise star player hiding a kid in the fucking arena.”

No one moves, not even Jordie who is probably the only person who can talk Jamie down at this point. They all wait to see what Kari says, her heart-shaped face impassive as Jamie looms in front of her. Cam has to give it to the other security officer, Jamie on a tear is a Jamie that no one wants to mess with, see: Superman Punching Someone Unconscious.

“Um, hey, Jamie,” Seguin pipes up suddenly, stepping forward until he’s standing in Jamie’s peripheral view and almost hesitantly taps her on the shoulder. “It’s not Kari’s fault. If you want to be mad at anyone-”

“Oh, trust me,” Jamie cuts him off, turning her head towards Seguin so abruptly that the man takes a few steps back. “I’ll get to you soon enough,  _ Mr. _ Seguin, but right now I’m busy yelling at someone else, so you’ll have to wait your turn.”

Cam unsuccessfully smothers a laugh, earning her a nudge in the ribs from Jordie, but it doesn’t matter. Even a herd of stampeding elephants wouldn’t be able to distract Jamie from ripping Kari a new one. Seguin’s face screws up into a confused expression, but he keeps his mouth shut, a choice that Cam silently commends him on. Jamie turns back to Kari who still looks far less intimidated than she probably should.

“Look,” Kari says, unfolding her muscular arms and mimicking Jamie’s looming pose, hands on hip, eyes set to maximum death glare. “Tyler doesn’t want to tell you about his kid, he doesn’t have to tell you about his kid.”

“THERE WAS A GODDAMN FOUR YEAR OLD RUNNING AROUND UNATTENDED!” Jamie shouts and Cam feels like a superman punch might be the least of Kari’s worries right now because the expression on Jamie’s face is downright furious. This time Jordie shifts beside Cam, taking a step towards Jamie as if getting in a better position to grapple her little sister on the chance that she swings at Kari. “I don’t give a shit about whether or not someone wants to tell me that he’s reproduced. I give a shit about a little kid hurting himself in a myriad of different ways because no one’s fucking watching him.”

It’s at this moment that the woman in sandals and a sundress comes trotting down the hall, big blue eyes frantic as she heads straight for Seguin, ignoring everyone else.

“Tyler, I can’t find Danny!” she clutches at his arms, pressing herself bodily against him. “I turned around and he was gone! We have the call the police!”

“Please tell me that’s not the baby mama,” Jamie says without turning around. “I  _ need _ that to not be the baby mama for her sake,” Her voice is suddenly eerily calm and Jordie moves again, positioning herself between her sister and the new arrival. Cam is suddenly absolutely lacking any regret whatsoever for agreeing to help out Baby Benn because this is better than anything Shonda Rimes could have put on TV.

“It’s not,” Seguin says as the woman starts sobbing prettily into his bare chest, still clutching at him for all she’s worth. Every time he tries to extract himself, the woman clings tighter. “She’s the nanny.”

“Dude,” Jamie says, slowly turning to look over her sister’s shoulder at Seguin, all signs of her earlier rage gone and honestly, Cam has gotten less whiplash in actual car crashes. “You need to run background checks,”

***

Jamie remembers very little of her official introduction speech to the Dallas Stars locker room because it’s difficult to hear anything over the cacophonous screech of humiliation happening inside her brain. She knows that she makes as little eye contact with Tyler Seguin as possible and that she’s supremely grateful for Jordie who helps fill in the gaps where Jamie’s brain just completely gives up and starts sobbing in the fetal position.

She makes sure that everyone has her personal number in the event of an emergency or if they have questions about the new security procedures and all but flees the locker room. Jordie and Cam peel off somewhere around the guest locker room and while Jamie loves her sister more than anything, she’s happy to just be alone at the moment.

Which is why she gets to the security office and finds Sharpy sitting at one of the desks in the corner, feet propped up on the desk, an old copy of InStyle open on her lap. The older woman doesn’t even look up from turning the pages when Jamie enters the room.

“For fucks sake, kick me while I’m down why don’t you?” Jamie mutters to no one in particular and goes to the desk that she’s claimed for her own, yanking the drawers open in the hopes that the person who had held the desk before her had a tendency to get stress headaches too. She’s out of luck in regards to the medication, but finds an unnecessarily large stash of post it notes and hand sanitizer.

The soft clatter of pills in a bottle draws her attention straight to Sharpy who is still leafing through her magazine and shaking a travel-sized bottle of Tylenol at her. Jamie blows out a heavy sigh, her side swept bangs fluttering under the puff of air and slowly stands up before trudging over to Sharpy.

“Listen, just so we’re clear, I am not going to sleep with you,” she says as Sharpy hands over the bottle and offers Jamie the half-drunk Pepsi on the desk. Sharpy’s lips curl ever so slightly as Jamie shakes out four Tylenol and throws them back with the Pepsi, cringing a little at the sweetness of the soda.

“And just so  _ we’re  _ clear, babe, I was just offering Tylenol, not a quickie in the janitor’s closet.” Sharpy says with a wink and takes her soda back, tilting the bottle to her lips in a manner that is way too suggestive for the simple consumption of a carbonated beverage.

“I fucking hate you,” Jamie says. “Seriously. I hope you step on a Lego.”

Sharpy’s tinkling laughter follows Jamie out of the security office.

* * *

**Never respond to a domestic with anyone braver than you.**

The number that wakes Jamie out of a dead sleep is unfamiliar, but it’s a Dallas area code and there are a limited number of people in the Dallas area who have her number so she drags her phone onto the pillow next to her face and presses answer.

“‘Lo?” She grumbles, her voice thick with sleep as she rolls away from Jordie’s irritated whine. There’s a moment of harsh breathing on the other end which almost sends her reaching for the hang up button, but then an all too familiar voice comes over the line, eerily hushed.

“Jamie?” Tyler is whispering and there’s an edge to his voice that she’s never heard before, an edge that has her grabbing the phone and sitting up in bed.

“Tyler? What’s wrong?” Adrenaline floods her system like a familiar warmth as she kicks off the covers and rolls out of bed.

“The dogs are... I’m think there’s someone outside, Jamie.” He sounds afraid and his next words spike the adrenaline already racing through her veins. “Danny’s here, Jamie. I don’t know- I don’t-”

“It’s okay. Do me a favor. Hang up with me and call 911, okay?” He starts to protest, but she gently shushes him even as she starts to yank her sweats off, phone pinned between her shoulder and her ear.

“It’s okay; they can get someone there faster than me. I’ll be there soon, okay? They’ll stay on the line with you until an officer gets there. I’ll be there before you even know it, okay?” She drags her jeans off the top of the dresser, clumsily stepping into them and trying not to fall over as she pulls them up over her hips. Jordie stirs in bed, half-sitting up on her elbow as she blinks sleepily at her. ‘Seguin,’ Jamie mouths at her sister in the half light from the hallway and watches her sister come all the way awake, sitting upright in bed.

“Promise?” His frightened tone makes something clench tight in her chest and she gives her head a sharp shake to clear it.

“I’ll be there in less than 20 minutes, Tyler. Go get Danny, go in the bathroom, lock the door, and call 911, okay?” he makes a noise of assent and hangs up.

“I think someone’s trying to break into Seguin’s house,” she tells Jordie, her voice muffled as she yanks a shirt over her head. “I’m gonna go over there and see what’s going on.”

“You need back-up?” Jordie asks, making as if to throw the covers back. Jamie shakes her head, gesturing at her sister to lay back down.

“Dallas PD should be on the way and I don’t think waking Alec up to drag him out to a possible crime scene is a great idea,” Jamie says, grabbing a baseball cap off the top of her luggage and cramming it onto her head. Jordie makes a face, but flops back into the bed, twisting around under the covers. Jamie knows her sister, knows that she’ll be out within 5 minutes of her leaving.

“Love you!” Jordie calls sleepily after her as Jamie dashes out of the room, shoving her phone into her pocket.

“Love you too!” Jamie whisper shouts back as she dashes by Alec’s closed bedroom door and down the stairs. It takes her all of four minutes to cram her feet into her boots, snatch her jacket off the hook, and find her keys on the kitchen table.

It turns out, she’d lied to Seguin about being there in 30 minutes. 

She makes it there in less than 20.

***

Tyler’s heart doesn’t exactly stop racing when Jamie Benn comes walking into his living room looking like the living embodiment of badass, but it does finally slow down a bit which is nice in its own right. The tall, dark-haired officer whose name tag reads ‘Bishop’ looks up from where he’d been jotting down Tyler’s statement in his notebook and arches an eyebrow at the newcomer.

“You guys okay?” she asks without sparing a look for the other people in the room, all of that dark-eyed intensity focused on him and Danny. His son hasn’t said a word since Tyler dragged him out of bed to hide in the master bathroom until they could hear the police officers climbing the staircase, but to Tyler’s surprise, Danny wiggles a hand free from between the two of them and shyly waves at Jamie who gives him a quick wink and a wave back.

“And you are?” Office Bishop asks, pen poised over the notepad laid open on his knee. Jamie’s attention shifts, giving Tyler a second to regain the breath that had caught in his throat at the sight of her, and he’s suddenly even more glad that he’d called her the moment Cash and Marshall had woken him up with their growling.

“Jamie Benn, Head of Security for the Stars organization,” she says and shows her teeth more than actually smiles. “Mr. Seguin called me.”

Officer Bishop’s attention swings back around to Tyler who tries his hardest not to react, but the heat in his cheeks gives him away. He’s well aware of the optics of the situation, particularly given his almost celebrity status in Dallas and the very obvious smoking hotness of one Jamie Benn, but he’s still too relieved that she’d come when he called to feel any sort of real embarrassment.

He’d called his crush before he called the police. 

Ooof.

“Uh-huh,” Officer Bishop says disbelievingly, but he taps his notebook on his knee and nods towards the entryway. “You mind if I have a word, Miss Benn?”

Jamie arches an eyebrow at his tone, but flashes that edge of a smile again as she gestures expansively with one arm. “Oh, you can have a couple of words,  _ Officer _ .”

If it were anyone else, Tyler would have accused them of flirting, but he’d been on the receiving end of a Jamie Benn sarcasm attack and knew exactly what exactly the officer could expect if he said the wrong thing. Bishop follows Jamie out into the entryway and the hushed conversation begins, the officer’s height forcing him to tilt his head down towards Jamie’s.

“Daddy?” Danny’s little hand pulls on the collar of his t-shirt and Tyler looks down at his son, still curled tightly to him and eyeing the police officers in the living room with a fair amount of trepidation.

“Yeah, it’s okay, buddy; Jamie’s here now.” he says, gathering the little boy even tighter. Marshall, clearly sensing Danny’s anxiety, sits up on the floor and lays his head over the little boy’s lap with a soft sigh.

He looks back towards Jamie and Officer Bishop only to find that their body language has changed, both of them looking a little more relaxed as they continue to talk, Bishop occasionally taking notes in his notebook. Something uncomfortable tugs in the pit of his stomach as Jamie laughs, her eyes crinkling at the corners and turns his attention back to Danny, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, looking at anything except for Jamie and the way she looks up through her eyelashes at Bishop.

***

“What?” Tyler asks, maybe a little more defensively than the situation calls for and Jamie shifts her gaze from the pile of blankets on the couch to the shirtless hockey player standing beside them, tattooed arms folded across his chest.

“Nothing,” she says because adrenaline dump is a real thing, but she’s not sure that giving her 7 blankets and 3 pillows is an appropriate response to her offer to sleep on the couch. Not that she’s going to say that out loud or anything. “Thanks for the blankets.”

Whatever Tyler is about to say is interrupted by the appearance by the two black Labradors who swarm past him and head straight for her, tails knocking enthusiastically against her legs and the furniture as they jockey for the best petting position.

“Marshall, Cash, quit it,” Tyler says, but it seems more like a token protest as she crouches down to greet the two dogs properly. The smaller of the two swipes a tongue across her cheek and it startles a laugh out of her as she ruffles his ears. When she looks up, Tyler is looking at her with an almost affectionate smile that vanishes as soon as he sees her looking.

“So, yeah, there’s extra toothbrushes and towels in the downstairs bathroom, just down that hallway down there,” he points and then rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “Danny will be sleeping with me tonight because I think he’s freaked out.”

Jamie doesn’t point out that she doesn’t think it’s just Danny whose freaked out because it won’t do to offend the guy, so she just says, “Where do the dogs usually sleep? And do they tend to move around the house a lot at night?”

“Uh, they usually sleep between my room and Danny’s room, but I think with you here, you might get at least one late night visitor.” He says, looking vaguely embarrassed. “I can try and lock them in my room.”

Jamie shakes her head as she straightens from her crouch, giving the bigger of the two dogs one final pat. “It’s all good. If I know they’re around, I won’t react to hearing them in the house or thinking they’re someone else.”

“You know, you don’t have to do this.” Tyler says, almost like he’s trying to talk himself out of the arrangement reached between herself and the Dallas PD, an arrangement that he didn’t necessarily have a lot of say in because clear evidence of someone’s size 11 shoe had been clearly found in the mulch around the downstairs guest bedroom window and tracked around the side of the house, bushes crushed down a little bit as if someone had tromped through them looking for easy access.

“Yeah,” she says, looking him dead in the face. “I do.”

His mouth opens like he’s going to protest, but he eventually shuts it without saying anything, gives her a nod, and disappears back upstairs.

“ _ Of course, I do _ ,” Jamie thinks to herself as she kicks her boots off by the couch, glancing back at the empty stairs before moving around the downstairs, room by room, checking locks and windows before returning to the couch and her mound of blankets. “ _ Of course, I have to crash on the couch of the guy I rebound slept. Of course I do because I... am a giant fucking idiot.” _

It’s not a comforting thought, but its the one at the forefront of her mind as she curls up on the couch amid the multitude of blankets and drifts off to an uneasy sleep.

***

“Hi,” the voice all by itself would have been enough to wake Jamie even without the addition of two small hands trying to pry one of her eyes open. She reacts on instinct, capturing the smaller fingers gently in one hand and blinks blearily at the little boy leaning over her on the couch.

“Hi,” she says and yawns in his face. He wrinkles his nose, so Jamie releases him and sits up on her elbows. “How’d you get away from your Dad?”

“He had a really rough night,” Danny says with the sort of gravitas that comes with a whole lot more life experience than a four year old is actually able to have. “So I’m letting him sleep in.”

“How magnanimous of you,” she says and just barely manages to avoid yawning in his face again. “I don’t suppose you know where the coffee is, do you?”

Danny smiles broadly, revealing a gap-toothed grin.

***

Tyler’s first thought upon regaining consciousness is sheer panic because the spot on the bed beside him is cold and Danny is nowhere to be seen.

Tyler’s second thought is that it’s been quite a while since he’s heard Danny laugh like that.

Scrubbing a hand across his face, he pushes himself upright and sees Cash and Marshall sprawled out on the floor, dead asleep. The guard dogs from last night are nowhere in sight, currently replaced by his two slightly greying chubby black labs, the oldest of who is snoring audibly.

“Great job, guys; a-plus guard dogging,” he says and goes to pull a t-shirt out of his dresser.

He’s not sure what to expect in his almost too-big kitchen, but it is definitely not what he finds, namely Jamie Benn standing in front of the stove, whisking something white in a bowl while Danny sits on the counter next to her, holding a spatula tightly in his little hand.

“Hi Dad,” Danny says overly bright when he notices Tyler standing in the doorway and it’s shifty enough that Tyler knows his son has probably done something he’s not supposed to. Jamie turns at his entrance, still whisking and Tyler doesn’t know what to do with the warm burn in his chest at the sight of her in his kitchen, clearly in the middle of making something breakfast related.

“Hi,” he says, arching an eyebrow at his son who suddenly finds the spatula in his hand fascinating.

“Hi,” she says, no trace of the awkwardness from last night in her voice. Her hair is a little mussed, the longer silky-looking strands flopping every which way over her undercut and his fingers itch to touch. “You want some breakfast?”

And that is how Tyler learns that not only can Jamie Benn can kick the ass of multiple people at one time, but that she makes a mean Belgian waffle. The white stuff that she’s intently whisking turns out to be eggs whites which Danny solemnly informs him will make the waffles super fluffy. It sounds like a direct quote and Tyler can’t help but smile.

Tyler sits at the kitchen island with a cup of fresh coffee and watches as Jamie lets Danny “help” fold egg whites into the mixture and then ladle batter onto the waffle iron on the counter. Tyler had completely forgotten that he even had that waffle iron because Danny is very much a cereal for breakfast sort of child child, but watching his son’s eyes light up at being able to help make breakfast, he thinks it might be nice for them to mix it up every now and then.

“Jamie, what do you like to eat on your waffles?” Danny asks as they close the top of the iron and turn it to start the cooking process. Jamie makes a show of thinking which also delights Danny, although Tyler is beginning to think there isn’t anything that Jamie could do that wouldn’t be delightful to Danny.

“Probably Nutella or peanut butter,” she finally says and ruffles the little boy’s hair. “What do you like on your waffles?”

“Syrup!” Danny crows, kicking his heels against the cupboards before twisting around on the counter to look at Tyler. “Daddy, what are you going to have on your waffles?” It’s a bit to take in, both of them watching him, Jamie’s hand resting on Danny’s back to keep him from tipping off the counter.

“Uh, probably syrup, bud,” he says and earns a giggle from Danny. “But not too much.”

“That’s right,” Jamie says as the iron clicks it’s readiness on the counter at her elbow. “Your dad’s gotta watch that boyish figure.”

Any reply he could think up is lost in the bustle of getting Danny’s breakfast ready and then Jamie is making them waffles of their own and joining the two of them at the breakfast nook. It should feel awkward, a stranger joining them for breakfast, but Jamie helps Danny slide the sleeves of his pjs back so they don’t get in his syrup and helps him tuck a paper towel into the collar of his shirt and it’s so completely effortless that Tyler finds himself staring.

Jamie being good with kids which probably shouldn’t be as jarring of a realization as it is, especially since Danny had talked practically non-stop about the pretty lady who had rescued him when he got lost the previous day. She’s patient in a way that not even the nanny is, listens to Danny’s four year old babble like it’s the most interesting thing in the world and doesn’t even flinch when he accidentally upends his syrupy plate onto her lap, her shirt catching most of it.

“You’re good with him,” Tyler says after they’d sent Danny upstairs to get dressed and Jamie is standing at the kitchen sink, trying to scrub syrup off her shirt. She half turns towards him, still working at the spot, but he suspects it’s less because she cares so much about the shirt and more because his presence makes her somewhat uncomfortable without the buffer of Danny there.

“I have a five year old nephew,” she says and there’s a faint smile on her face. “He’s pretty great.”  _ I think you’re pretty great, _ Tyler wants to say, but he’s 100% sure that this is not the time or place and goes to get Jamie a shirt to borrow because he doesn’t think that syrup is coming out without a washing machine.

It’s Mrs. Meyers’ turn in the parent carpool this week and she’s perpetually late so the usual race to find Danny’s backpack (behind the guest room dresser this week) isn’t as dire as it usually is. Jamie slots perfectly into their morning, helping Danny tie his light up sneakers and assuring him that the Bumblebee t-shirt that he’d picked is the perfect choice for a Wednesday morning while Tyler makes sure that his lunch box is packed and carefully zipped into his backpack.

Jamie looks cute in his shirt, the sleeves flopping past the end of her fingertips as she helps Danny get ready for school. It’s some kind of adorable as she keeps huffing and pushing the sleeves up past her elbows only to have them flop back down as she tries to re-tie the shoe “just like the other one” at Danny’s insistence. Tyler isn’t sure the last time he’d spent so much time laughing during their morning routine.

Mrs. Meyers is predictably 10 minutes late and she pulls into the driveway with a shouted apology, her minivan already loaded down with preschoolers. Danny hugs Tyler and he hugs back just as tightly, taking a moment to breathe in the scent of his son before letting him run to the car where Mrs. Meyers is waiting to buckle him in. There’s a moment where Danny says something to Mrs. Meyers and rushes back to them and Tyler starts to crouch down only for Danny to rush past him and throws himself at Jamie.

“Have a good day, Jamie!” Danny crows, arms wrapped around her legs, his face smashed against her hip. Jamie looks startled for all of two seconds before she ruffles the hair on his head and says with a smile, “have a good day at school, bud.”

Mission accomplished, Danny races back to the van and finally allows himself to be buckled into the car seat. Tyler straightens up as the van pulls out, waving goodbye to his son. Jamie stands at his side, close enough to touch if he were to reach out a hand, but he doesn’t. She yawns, a huge, jaw-cracking thing, and rubs furiously at her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“He woke you up this morning, didn’t he?” Tyler asks, turning back towards the house. Jamie snorts indelicately as she follows him into the house.

“Tried to pry my eyes open, actually,” she says, closing the door behind them. The house is quiet without Danny there, both dogs probably sleeping somewhere after the whirlwind of a morning.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Tyler says, fighting the urge to fidget with his hands. “He’s always been an early riser.”

“No problem; my nephew prefers early morning pile-drivers.” They fall into silence after that until Jamie clears her throat awkwardly and gestures vaguely around her.

“I should… you know,” she says and he’s pretty sure that flush in her cheeks isn’t from wearing a long-sleeved shirt in 80 degree weather.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he says. “I should be getting ready for practice.”

Tyler tries not to let his touch linger when they shake hands, but it’s like that first meeting in Vegas all over again, right down to the pink dusting her cheeks. As if reading his mind, Jamie wrenches her hand out of his and with a tight smile, disappears through the front door.

“Jesus, I’m an idiot,” Tyler says aloud in the oppressive still of his house and goes to get ready for practice.

***

Jordie is sitting on the couch when Jamie gets home, one leg curled under her and a book in her lap, a steaming cup on the coffee table in front of her.

“Nice shirt,” her big sister says without looking up from her book. Jamie pauses in the entry, one boot already off and debates the merits of responding and potentially activating whatever lecture is undoubtedly headed her way.

In the end, she kicks off her other boot, tosses her keys on the side table and mumbles, “Nice face,”

Jordie snorts, but doesn’t take the bait so Jamie trudges upstairs to shower and absolutely not think about what had just happened.

Her phone rings just as she shuts the water off and she hops out of the shower, swearing, as she scrambles to snatch it off the counter.

The screen reads “Front Office” and that’s never a good sign to be getting calls from the higher ups. Especially not after the night she’d just had.

“Jamie Benn? Mr. Nill would like you to come in,” an unknown voice says. “There’s been an incident.”

The bottom drops out of Jamie’s stomach.

* * *

**The one time you swear on the radio, the Chief is listening**

Calls from the front office asking him to come in on the morning of a game are never good, but Tyler’s estimation of the situation changes dramatically when he walks into Jim Nill’s office to find Nill, a host of people from the PR department, and... Jamie.

Jamie, who is sitting in the massively uncomfortable chairs in front of Nill’s desk and is pointedly not looking at him. Jamie who looks so tense that he thinks even the lightest of touches will shatter her to pieces.

Tyler has the same sense of impending doom that he’d had when Boston’s front office had called him four years ago.

That impending sense of doom increases dramatically as he’s ushered into the chair next to Jamie and someone from PR hands him a tablet.

The open web page is Deadspin, the headline reads ‘Happily Ever After In Dallas?: The Hockey Prince and his Xena Warrior Princess?’ and the picture underneath is an incredibly clear shot of Jamie and he standing in the driveway of his house, Danny in the process of wrapping his arms around Jamie who has a fond smile on her face. He’s frozen, staring at the picture before him, at  _ his  _ son out in the world for everyone to see. There’s a dull roar in his ears that turns all the conversation happening around him into distant murmurs as he stares down at Danny and him and Jamie and Danny and Danny and...

A hand with fingers tipped in shiny black nail polish is suddenly prying his fingers off the tablet and the movement Tyler yanks out of his stupor just in time to hear Jamie snap, “It’s his fucking kid. He has every right to be pissed off,” as she shoves the tablet back at the PR person. “Hell, I’m pissed on his behalf.”

Across the desk, Jim Nill is looking at Tyler intently and he’s silently relieved to see that the general manager isn’t giving him that pitying stare that Chiarelli had always given him back in Boston. If anything, the GM looks downright sympathetic and that’s good. Tyler can work with sympathetic. He’d made a point of ensuring that the Dallas front office knew every single skeleton in his closet when he’d been traded from Boston and that had included the sudden appearance of Danny four years ago.

“I’m just saying that it looks very… familiar.” Tyler tunes back in to hear the innuendo dripping from the PR team member’s words and glances over at Jamie who is completely blank faced as she stares at the suit clad man. In fact, the only sign that she’s feeling anything at all is the white knuckled grip that she has on the arm of the chair, her fingers squeezing the leather so hard that he thinks she might tear it

“Listen, I responded to Mr. Seguin’s call. I contacted the local authorities and responded accordingly. I did everything by the book. You can have my report in triplicate if you want it.” Jamie’s voice is flat, a recitation of facts and Tyler wants to grimace. Long gone is the laughter of this morning, the sparkle in her eyes as Danny pleaded to take Cash to school with him. The leather creaks under her fingers and Tyler reaches out and puts his hand on hers. Jamie glances at him in surprise, but doesn’t pull away. 

“Tyler,” Nill breaks in, glancing away from where Tyler is holding Jamie’s hand and looking Tyler dead in the eyes. The PR guy, Mark? Mike? Is staring hard at the two of them, his expression calculating. “What do you need from us?” Nill asks.

“I…” the words feel frozen in his mouth, present but stuck. He swallows hard and glances to the right. Jamie is watching him with a bland expression on her face, but her eyes are warm and he looks away, swallowing hard. He’s about to speak when the PR man cuts him off and Jamie’s hand, still under in his, tenses.

“Mr. Seguin, are you romantically involved with Miss Benn?” as Tyler watches, the warmth in Jamie’s eyes vanishes and he remembers Vegas and waffles at 3 am and his shirt slipping off her shoulder and finds his voice.

“No,” he says, surprised that he can get the words out so easily when it feels like the biggest lie he’s ever told in his life. Jamie’s hand slips from his grasp, the distance growing between them again. “We’re not.”

“That’s not what that picture says,” The PR guy counters and Tyler’s spine stiffens in response to his tone. “And if anyone takes a look at the recent hiring of Miss Benn, assumptions will be made.” 

Tyler opens his mouth to argue because seriously, fuck this guy with his sleazy insinuations, but Jamie beats him to it.

“It’s okay, Ty,” she says and the pet name smacks him right between the eyes. “We can tell them.”

Tyler isn’t sure he can tell anyone his own name at the moment, so all he can do is watch as Jamie apologizes to Nill for not coming clean about their relationship when he had offered her the position, eloquently spinning a tale of trying to keep work and private life separate. Nill nods understandingly and then the questions begin, the PR guys putting grizzled homicide detectives to shame with their interrogation techniques.

Jamie makes it easy to lie and before Tyler can so much as blink, they’re creating an entire history, cluing each other into the facts with sideways glances and gentle squeezes of the hands that they resume holding. In the space of ten minutes, they’ve created a year of being together, a happy little family that has managed to exist below the media’s radar, and would like to continue doing so.

“I think we can spin this,” the PR guy says, tapping the tablet that he’s been taking notes on. “I think that we can prevent this picture from looking like your party boy past has come back to haunt you.”

“That’s his kid you’re talking about,” Jamie snaps, but the man in the thousand dollar suit just shrugs.

“To the sports media, both you and Danny are reasons to question whether or not Tyler is able to captain this team responsibly and if this is going to impact the way that he plays hockey. And all of that will impact this team, Mr. Seguin. So, I’m sorry if I appear callous when I say that we can spin this, but unfortunately the only option we have available right now  _ is  _ spin.”

Jamie makes a scoffing noise from beside him that somehow works it’s way past the ringing in Tyler’s ears.

It’s his worst nightmare coming true.

“And for the time being, Miss Benn,” PR guy says, glaring at Jamie who is staring right back, openly defiant. Tyler is pretty sure the guy is outclassed as fuck. “That spin is going to include you.”

***

**Eks:** What. The. Fuck.

**Care-Bear:** Smooth, Eks. Super supportive. Glad we had that talk this morning about what NOT to say.

**Eks:** I apologize.

**Eks: ** Jamie, Pricey and I want to be supportive in this difficult time as you embark on the next step in your life.

**Jamie:** Oh, fuck off, Eks.

**Eks:** Um, excuse me, I am not the one playing house with Tyler Seguin.

**Care-Bear:** Wow, Eks… just wow.

**Jamie:** Look you guys, I don’t have a lot of options here. Either Tyler and Danny are miserable or I’m miserable. The PR guy is right, a positive spin is the only way to play this. Our “relationship” can fade away in a few months with no one the wiser and everyone can return to their regularly scheduled lives.

**Care-Bear:** This is a bad idea.

**Jamie: ** Please guys? For me?

**Eks:** All right, fine. I don’t like it, but fine. Also, if he upset you at all, I will be coming to Dallas and I will be bringing my boyfriend and Sid and possibly Geno.

**Care-Bear:** Just take care of yourself, Benny. You’re too far away for me to punch common sense into you when you’re being an idiot.

**Jamie:** Aw, you do care, Pricey.

**Eks: ** Being in a relationship has changed you for the better, Pricey.

**Care-Bear:** Neither of you are invited to Thanksgiving in Nashville. I’m only inviting Danni because she at least has the common sense to make fun of me in a language that I don’t speak.

***

Jordie doesn’t freak out in the same way that Eks and Pricey do. She just listens as Jamie explains what’s happening, leaning her hip against the front counter of Benn Baking Co and fiddling with her apron strings. When Jamie’s done unloading, Jordie taps a flour dusted finger against her chin and says, “do you remember that time you jumped off the roof of the group home with a sheet for a parachute?”

Jamie absolutely remembers that particular life event, she’d broken her ankle and been stuck on the couch for the entire summer while the other group home kids climbed trees and raced around the cul-de-sac and she tells Jordie as much.

“I think you gave this decision roughly the same amount of thought,” Jordie says and walks back into the kitchen. At the register, the red-headed pastry chef that Jordie poached from a Michelin star restaurant is making a point of  _ not _ looking at Jamie, instead very carefully lining the cake order forms in their plastic holder.

“Brownie,” Jamie says and the fidgeting stops as a pair of big brown eyes glance her way. “Am I total disaster human?”

“Your sister lit a roll of aluminum foil on fire last week because she was too busy mooning over the hot cop that comes in for coffee and a pastry every morning.” the young woman says with a shrug. “So unless you set anything on fire in the last 48 hours, I’m gonna rate you at only partial disaster human.”

“Does that qualify me for a free danish?” Jamie asks, trying for pitiful and probably succeeding based on the expression on the other woman’s face.

“Or….” Brownie says, fluttering her eyelashes ever so slightly and Jesus, Jamie is sort of a sucker for a pretty face even when she knows that face is 100% straight. “You could volunteer to taste test my new Earl Grey scones and we could talk smack about your sister.”

“Marry me,” Jamie says and watches a pink flush spread across Brownie’s cheeks.

“Stop hitting on my staff!” Jordie shouts from behind the swinging kitchen door. “I swear to God, Jamie, I will ban you for a month again!”

***

“Hi, I’m Alec!” the dark-haired little boy chirps as he stares up at Tyler, arms wrapped around a stuffed blue octopus that was clearly well-loved and much-repaired. “This is Mac and he’s gonna stay with Aunt J so she doesn’t get lonely without me.” Out in the driveway, Jamie and her older sister are pulling luggage out of a dark blue SUV, their dark heads tilted together in quiet conversation.

“Are those dogs?” Alec asks, switching topics between breaths as he stares past Tyler into the house. Cash and Marshall are sitting on the marble floor where they’ve been trained to wait when company visits, their tails wagging. He gives it less than ten more seconds before they’re up and slobbering all over everything.

“Yeah, that’s Cash and Marshall,” he says, unable to keep from grinning at the wide-eyed expression on the child’s face. “You can go say ‘hi’ if you want.”

“Mom! I’m going to say hi to Tyler’s dogs!” Alec hollers over his shoulder and then dashes past Tyler into the house as his mother and aunt begin to make their way up the steps to the front door.

“Hi,” Jamie’s sister says as she comes up the steps, a large duffel bag slung over one tattooed shoulder. Her hair is dark, but glints red in the sun and she wears it long, pulled back in a sloppy bun. Up close, it’s easy to see the family resemblance, the same warm brown eyes and faintly mischievous smile hovering at the edge of full lips. “We haven’t officially met, but I’m Jordie. And I don’t want you to think any less of me when I have to drag my kid out of your house later, kicking and screaming about wanting a dog.”

“I won’t,” he says. “Promise.” He moves aside to let her in, Jamie following up the steps with another two duffel bags and a suit bag slung over her shoulder.

His “girlfriend” looks like she hasn’t slept very well lately and she doesn’t make eye-contact, shuffling past him into the foyer. He doesn’t blame her, after all, this is far more of a disruption to her life than it is to his. Danny hadn’t even blinked when he’d sat him down and explained that Jamie would be living with them for a while, just asked if she would make breakfast again and if he could have blueberries for his afternoon snack.

Tyler sighs heavily and pushes the door shut behind the little troop before turning to follow them into the house. He’s not surprised to find Danny and Alec petting the dogs who are acting as though they’ve never been given affection a day in their lives. The two boys are laughing and giggling as they play with the dogs and the smile on Danny’s face is enough to warm Tyler’s chest. Danny spends a large portion of his time with nannies and his teammates and even though he has his fair share of playdates and friend time, it’s nice to see him so open and happy.

He catches Jamie watching him watch Danny and the sight of her standing in his foyer with luggage slaps him back into reality because for the foreseeable future, he is going to be cohabitating with this woman while they pretend to be in a committed relationship. And despite a fairly steady rotation of girlfriends, he’s never actually lived with a woman who wasn’t a family member.

His mom is going to fucking kill him.

“Uh, I can show you to your room,” he says and flees up the stairs, hoping that they’ll just follow. His house has an ungodly amount of rooms and he puts Jamie on the other side of Danny’s bedroom in a room with the ensuite bathroom. Danny had helped him make the bed with fresh sheets earlier and as an added touch, Danny had put one of his thousands of stuffed animals on the pillows to welcome her. Between the two boys, there was a very real chance that Jamie was going to wind up being pushed out of her own bed by stuffed animals. It had definitely happened to him before. There’s a faint smile on Jamie’s cheeks as she picks up the stuffed raccoon and rubs it’s velvety ear.

“Towels!” he blurts out, earning himself a pair of quirked eyebrows from the two sisters. “I forgot to get you towels!” he bolts from the room and it isn’t until he’s digging through the linen closet that he realizes that he has spent way too much time running away from Jamie Benn.

“Idiot,” he mutters as he gathers an armful of towels and nudges the closet door shut with his knee. “You are such an idiot, Tyler.” he’s almost back at the room when he hears the two sisters talking and automatically slows. He’ll be hard-pressed to say he’s not eavesdropping if anyone catches him hovering just outside the door.

“I’m just saying that this could go real bad, real quick, Jamie. Especially since a kid’s involved.” there’s a heavy sigh in response that he can already recognize as belonging to Jamie.

“Believe me, Jor, I am well aware of all the ways that this can go horrifically wrong. Right now, I just want to focus on keeping Tyler and Danny safe and maybe maintaining some sort of professional dignity throughout this whole thing.” Tyler’s heart skips a beat at the fierceness in her voice and he slips back to the safety of his own room, still clutching the towels to his chest. He leans against the bedroom door and tries to swallow past the lump in his throat.

***

“Hey, come here for a second,” Jamie recognizes that particular tone in her sister’s voice, but she’s got two overexcited labradors dancing around her feet and two little boys clinging to each hand and all she can do is watch her big sister lead Seguin over by the front door and begin to talk to him quietly.

Despite not being able to hear what is said, Jamie has been around Jordie’s particular brand of overprotectiveness long enough to recognize the expression on his face as Jordie continues to speak. He looks a little like he’s been hit in the face with a shovel which is probably what Jordie is threatening to do to him if he does anything to hurt her. Unfortunately, Jamie is overrun by small children and dogs and is unable to do anything to stop it.

Her big sister finishes whatever threats she’s making and smiles up at a still poleaxed looked Seguin before turning back to Jamie and smiling benevolently like the harbinger of doom that she is. “Hey, Alec, we gotta get home. You have school tomorrow.” Both boys groan loudly at the thought of being separated from each other and begin to plead and beg for just a while longer which means that when Jordie does finally leave 15 minutes later, they’ve clarified that Alec can spend the night at some point over the weekend and they can have a sleepover with the dogs in the game room.

With her older sister and nephew gone, the house seems quieter, but no less busy as both dogs trundle off to find somewhere to nap and Danny and Tyler stand in the foyer watching her intently. Danny appears to be sizing her up for jungle gym purposes after finding that she had no qualms whatsoever about picking him up and tossing him over her shoulder just like she does Alec, but it’s Tyler’s quiet intensity as he watches her face that feels the most overwhelming.

“Hey, Jamie?” Danny suddenly pipes up, apparently oblivious to any tension in the room.

“Hey, Danny?” she parrots back, smiling at the way he wiggles in place, clearly delighted about what he’s going to say. She can feel Tyler’s eyes on her, but for the first time, the weight doesn’t feel like too much.

“Can we have waffles for dinner?” Danny asks, face wrinkling as he clasps his hands together. “ _ Pleeeeeeeeease?” _

“You gonna help make them?” she asks and is assured most wholeheartedly that she will not be alone in the kitchen.

“Okay, why don’t you go get your stool out so you can help me.” she says and Danny races off to the game room to get his step-stool, leaving her and Tyler alone in the entry.

“Jamie,” He starts, but the clatter of Danny returning with his stool cuts off whatever he was going to say next, the little boy already listing off all the things he’s going to put on his waffles.

It’s not the out she wants, but it’s the out she takes. 

* * *

**Anyone that flirts with you on-duty won't even recognize you off-duty.**

“How did you just come up with that story about how we got together?” stopped behind the flashing red lights of a railroad guard, Tyler shifts in his seat to look at the woman next to him. On the tracks, the engine races by with a shriek of its horn, but Jamie’s eyes don’t leave her phone and she doesn’t answer.

“I mean, I thought it was better than we fucked our brains out for 5 days in Vegas,” he says and Jamie’s head snaps up, brown eyes narrowing in suspicion and something else… something more delicate and a little sad. But the expression is gone almost as soon as it appears, her face smoothing out into an expressionless mask.

“Sorry,” he says, wincing a little as Jamie shifts in the seat, almost as if physically putting space between the two of them. “It’s just… a lot. And I have no idea how you’re so calm about this.” Tyler feels lost in a way that he had sworn he never would again, not after Annalise showed up at his doorstep with a squirming pile of blankets and baby and told him he was a father.

“Because it’s my job,” she says flatly and after a long beat that feels like it stretches forever, turns her attention back to her phone which has been buzzing non-stop since they got in the car.

On the tracks in front of them, the last car of the train speeds by and the flashing traffic guard goes dark, slowly lifting to allow them through. With a sigh and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Tyler drives forward, “It’s my job” playing on a repeat loop through his head.

***

“ _ Babe _ ,” the endearment slips out before Trish can stop it because even now, a full year later, it’s way too easy to just  _ be _ affectionate towards Jamie.

With an exaggerated precision that comes across as mockery, Jamie puts down the pen that she’s been using to drum an irritated beat against an empty coffee mug and folds her hands on the desk in front of her, giving Trish a smile that could have doubled for a snarl.

“Oh goodie,” Jamie says, her expression indicating that she is actually anything other than pleased. “I was just thinking that I’d love for my ex to come in and scold me in person rather than over text.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” Trish protests, leaning on the back of the visitor’s chair in front of the desk. She refuses to give Jamie the satisfaction of knowing that she is absolutely right, that Trish had come into the security office ready to reel off the list of all the reasons that this was an abysmally bad idea, reasons that have nothing to do with the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of Jamie being anywhere near Tyler Seguin.

That’s definitely not something she plans on telling Jamie.

“You were going to tell me that this is a problem that I could fix in a way more professional way. You were going to say that I’m not thinking rationally. You were going to tell me that I’ll regret this if I go through with it.” Jamie recites as if she’s been preparing for this argument since last night. Considering that Jamie had once fought with her by using a list of bullet points on a note card, Trish wouldn’t have been surprised if actual brainstorming had gone into preparation for this discussion.

“And no,” Jamie says as Trish opens her mouth to tell Jamie what she really thinks. “I’m not actually fucking him. Not that it’s really any of your business who I fuck.”

Shots fired.

No one has ever been able to get under Trish’s skin quite like Jamie Benn. It’s what made them so good together and it’s also what made them so bad together.

Not for the first time, does she regret ever answering Jordie Benn’s call for assistance.

“Jesus, Jamie,” Trish spits out, hackles rising at the antagonistic tone. “That was uncalled for.” It’s also making Trish think about that picture that graced the front page of the Puck Daddy website for the last six hours: Jamie smiling down at the little boy hugging her knees, Tyler beside her, their arms pressed together, the picture of a perfect family.

Jamie had always wanted a family and Trish had always been terrified of the idea of a family. It wasn’t the only reason that they’d split, but it had certainly been a mitigating factor.

“No, what was uncalled for was coming in here like you have any say at all in what happens in my life.” Jamie stands abruptly, her chair sliding back into the wall with a thud. They face off across the desk, both breathing more heavily than the situation calls for before the soft sound of someone clearing their throat turns their collective attention to the doorway. Val stands there in a Dallas Stars staff polo and jeans, an iPad in her hands as her blue gaze flicks uncomfortably between the two of them.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the Russian woman says, finally settling her gaze on Jamie. “Can you look over the guest list for the owner’s suite tonight?” Trish eyes Jamie, wondering how much Val had overheard on her approach to the office, but also knowing that given Cam Atkinson’s intense dislike for her, the legend of her tragic relationship with Jamie has probably already made the gossip rounds in the security office.

“Sure, Val. Can you give me a second? I’ll meet you in the conference room,” the other woman nods and backs out of the office, pulling the door closed behind her. Trish watches her go, seeing Jamie’s shoulders slump out of the corner of her eye. An incredibly awkward silence settles over the office before Jamie sighs. Trish turns back to her, watching her scrub a hand across her face.

“Look, Jamie, I’m only doing this because I ca-“ Trish starts and is cut short by an emphatic, almost violent shake of Jamie’s head. The younger woman looks up from the desk and Trish feels her breath catch at the depth of emotion in Jamie’s eyes, the rage having faded into hurt.

“Don’t, Trish. Please don’t.” the word ‘please’ comes out a little desperately. “I can’t hear you say that you care about me right now because if you fucking cared about me, my heart wouldn’t be shattered into a million pieces. I’m not there yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there. So just… don’t, okay?”

Trish bites back an instinctive, “but I do care about you,” and nods, tightening her hands on the back of the chair in front of her so that she won’t give into the desire to reach for Jamie as the other woman walks out the office door.

She doesn’t get to reach for Jamie anymore and she has no one to blame for that but herself.

***

“Where is he? I’m gonna kill him.” Jamie has to bite the inside of her lip to keep from laughing at the man who has just dramatically leapt through the door of the security office and startled Jaq so badly that the curly haired woman tips over backwards out of her chair with a shriek. To be fair, Jamie had warned the other woman earlier not to balance on the back legs of the chair, but it seems like none of her support staff are interested in listening to her today.

“And hello to you, bud,” Jamie says, putting down the roster she’s been looking at without really reading. Mitch Marner narrows his eyes at her, a gesture that would be far more intimidating if less than a month ago, she hadn’t literally rubbed his back while he puked his guts out in a dive bar bathroom.

“Pricey said I can kick his ass,” Mitch growls, but before he can expound on his plan to kick Tyler Seguin’s ass, a tall broad-shouldered red-headed man in an impeccably tailored grey suit steps into the doorway behind the hockey player, his dark eyes scanning the room.

“Marns, if you run away from me again, I am going to kneecap you so you can’t go anywhere unless I’m pushing you in a wheelchair,” Frederik Andersen’s voice rumbles out of his chest pleasantly which is why it takes a beat for the actual threat to land. But it does and Mitch pales.

“But Pricey said-“ Mitch protests, gesturing spasmodically in Jamie’s general direction.

“Pricey said if you want to beat him up, save it for the ice. Now shoo, your captain is looking for you,” Freddie says and Mitch gives the red-headed man a pouty look but holds out a fist for Jamie to bump before scurrying out of the security office as abruptly as he entered.

“Shoo?” Jamie asks dryly, still perched on the edge of the desk. Freddie shrugs, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. She and Freddie had gotten along like gangbusters since the first day they’d been put on a security detail together, much to Nikki’s chagrin, although most of the things that Jamie did were much to Nikki’s chagrin. 

Danni always said it was one of the reasons that she hired Jamie in the first place.

“They’re just giant puppies anyway. Small simple commands are usually best,” Freddie says, flicking a big hand dismissively. 

“Amen to that,” Jaq says as she gingerly picks herself up off the floor, rubbing her shoulder. Jamie had been worried about Jaq’s apparent habit of falling all over herself, but the kid seems to be made of teflon and vulcanized rubber for as often as any of her spills do any actual damage.

“Recruiting straight out of high school now?” Freddie asks, hitching up the leg of his suit so he can sit on the edge of the desk next to Jamie, his facial expression shifting into one that Jamie is very much familiar with: predatory and flirtatious. He’d tried it on her within two days of the two of them meeting and she’d face-washed him off the locker room bench into a pile of dirty towels.

“Fuck you,” Jaq says in the same saacharine sweet tone that Freddie had used earlier to threaten Mitch. “I’m twenty two,”

Freddie’s ginger eyebrow quirks towards the ceiling.

“You,” Jamie butts in, elbowing Freddie who just gives her a wink and drops the facade, the bedroom eyes disappearing almost immediately. “Stop flirting with the rookies. And you,” she says turning towards Jaq who looks a little taken aback at the revelation that she’s being flirted with. “Start paying better attention so you know when a cute guy is flirting with you.”

There’s a beat where Jaq blinks a few times and then turns her attention away from a smirking Freddie to arch an eyebrow at Jamie.

“Seriously, is there anyone in this company that you  _ haven’t _ been romantically involved with?” The younger woman asks, glancing between the two of them pointedly. Jamie and Freddie turn towards each other and say in unison, “Danni.”

“Yeah, not touching that with a ten foot pole.” Freddie adds and Jamie nods. Jaq just rolls her eyes and vanishes with a muttered comment about ‘ridiculously attractive people.’ Which is fine except for the part where Jamie is now alone with Freddie and a whole lot of lurking questions. For lack of a better idea, she picks up a random piece of paper on the desk and stares intently down at it, trying to ignore the intent gaze being leveled at the side of her face.

The real problem with her current avoidance tactic is that she’s picked up the take-out menu for a local pizza place and it’s hard to look like one is working hard when one is actually just staring at the list of toppings for a medium deep-dish. With a heavy sigh, she drops the menu back onto the desk and lifts her gaze to Freddie’s.

“Oh, don’t worry,” the man says, folding his arms across his broad chest as he gives Jamie a mostly unimpressed look. “I don’t want to talk about whatever sort of daytime soap opera you’re running with Seguin although Nikki did sound like she was grinding her teeth to nubs when I talked to her on the phone this morning.”

Jamie shoots her friend an unimpressed look and gestures for him to get to the point.

“But do mine eyes deceive me or did I just run into the one and only Trish Sharp in the hallway? I didn’t realize you guys were at the working together again point already,” and just like that, the bottom drops out of Jamie’s stomach. The dread in her gut must show on her face because Freddie just sighs and shakes his head.

“Speaking as the ex-boyfriend of the lovable yet emotionally stunted robot that is Auston Matthews, believe me, I get it.” The tall redhead holds out his arms towards Jamie, a faint smile turning up the corners of his mouth. “Hug it out?”

“Christ, you are such a dick,” Jamie mumbles, but steps into the hug anyway, pressing her forehead into Freddie’s solid chest and lets herself slump, letting someone else take the weight for a minute. It occurs to her as Freddie rubs gentle circles on her back and murmurs to her in Danish that she hasn’t taken any time at all to process the enormity of her recent decisions and that the knot that has been sitting in her chest since yesterday is a panic attack waiting to happen.

“Jesus,” she mutters into Freddie’s shirt and clenches her teeth hard as tears threaten to break free. “What the fuck am I doing?”

“Crying on me in the security office,” Freddie says, still rubbing her back. He sounds smug, but that’s also just how he sounds sometimes. “Just like that time in Stockholm.”

With a laugh that’s a little more wobbly than she likes, Jamie pulls away, carefully flicking the moisture away from the corners of her eyes and taking a deep but shaky breathe.

“I never cried on you in Stockholm.” she says, smoothing a hand over her slicked back hair and tugging at the hem of her jacket. “I puked on your shoes in Stockholm, but I never cried.” Freddie reaches out and tugs Jamie’s tie back into place with a smirk and she finds it in herself to roll her eyes at his mother-henning.

“Weird flex, Benny.” he says, eyes sparkling. “But okay.”

***

At the first halftime, down 2 to the Leafs, a member of the security team - he remembers that her name is Val and she’s walked him to his car after late night games before -- comes in and tells him in lightly accented English that Danny is sick, but that Jamie’s taking care of it. Some of the worry about his son is abated by the knowledge that Jamie is taking care of the situation but there’s a heavy knot in his chest for the rest of the game and he knows his play is affected by the distraction.

They eke out a win in OT -- not that Tyler’s any help -- and he tries not to make it look like he’s in a hurry to leave the ice, but he wants to see Danny and he doesn’t really care who knows that his top priorities do not include post-game interviews and soundbites for tomorrow morning’s radio shows. The PR guy with the smug face tries to wrangle him for a quick interview, but Tyler brushes him off. He races through a quick shower, throws on his gameday suit and takes off for the security office, ignoring everyone around him. The back halls are full of AAC staff and crew, but he ignores all of them, focused on his destination the same way that he would focus on a puck on the ice.

He slows his almost-jog as he nears the security office, finding a few members of the security team standing outside, namely Jordie who gives him a knowing look and tilts her head towards the door. Inside the office, Tyler finds Jamie standing in front of the small bank of security camera feeds that line the far wall, intently watching something on one of the screens. Cradled in her arms, his face buried in the side of her neck and out cold, is Danny. 

Tyler stops dead in his tracks, taking in everything about the scene before him: the easy way that Jamie holds his sleeping son in her arms, the gentle sway to her body as she murmurs something to the woman standing beside her, and the way one of her hands occasionally comes up to brush over Danny’s hair or gently rest against his forehead. He can’t recall ever seeing his son sleeping in someone else’s arms before.

A flicker of movement draws his attention away from Jamie and Danny and to the other person in the room. The woman standing beside Jamie is stunningly beautiful with a wide, gleaming smile and wavy dark hair that tumbles over her shoulders. But that’s not what catches his attention. No, what catches his attention and holds it, pins it there is the way that the other woman is looking at Jamie when Jamie is focused on the monitors. That’s the expression of someone who is looking at the center of their entire universe.

Tyler’s seen body language like this before from couples that have been together for years, that know every single thing about each other who move in unison on an unconscious level. He remembers as a younger player in Boston marveling at the way that Z’s wife seemed to read his mind when they were together, was always ready with the right thing to say or do. Jealousy, hot and sudden, boils in his gut and Tyler steps forward, clearing his throat gently so he doesn’t wake up Danny.

Jamie and her new companion turn and two different expressions greet him, one warm and relieved, the other razor sharp and just south of friendly.

“Hey,” Jamie says softly as she moves towards him. “He fell asleep about a half hour ago; the team doctor looked him over and gave him some Children’s Advil to help knock the fever back.”

“I’ll take him,” Tyler murmurs, grateful for the help, but ultimately just needing to hold his son for his own mental well-being. Jamie smiles knowingly and helps him settle Danny into his arms, the little boy muttering listlessly as he settles into his usual boneless flop. Danny is warm to the touch and he sniffles a little in his sleep as Tyler rubs a hand over his back, but he’s seen his son much worse off than this and he knows that Jamie is more than competent enough to take care for an ill child.

“You gonna introduce us, Benny?” the other woman says, giving Tyler a look like he’s a particularly challenging puzzle to be solved. Her body posture screams aggressor, but Jamie’s rolling her eyes and that’s enough to negate the woman as a threat in Tyler’s eyes.

“I would literally rather chew my own foot off, but since that’s not an option... Tyler, this is Trish Sharp; Trish, you’re literally a person who lives in Dallas so you’re already well aware that this is Tyler Seguin,” Jamie says with maybe a hint too much sarcasm given that this is someone that Tyler’s never met.

“Hey,” he says, adjusting Danny in his arms to be able to hold out a hand. “I’m Tyler,”

The other woman stares hard at him for a long minute, but reaches out a hand to shake. Her grip is strong, but despite the clear challenge in her eyes, she doesn’t try and out muscle him, just shakes his hand and pulls back to fold her arms across her chest. It’s clear she’s made up her mind about him.

“We should probably head home so we can get him to bed,” Jamie says in the abrupt silence that the security office falls into, glancing between the two of them. As if in agreement, Danny shifts in Tyler’s arms and shivers slightly.

“Yeah, can you hold him while I grab my gear? I think we’re gonna need to swing by the store for some soup and Pedialyte on our way home,” he says, trying to think through the logistics of the matter. His house is well stocked with hockey player food and healthy kid food, but he’s lacking in the basics when it comes to a sick kid diet. When Danny is sick, he only wants Chicken and Stars and applesauce and for Tyler to basically be an on-call full body pillow.

“Oh don’t worry about buying soup, Jamie’s got a great chicken soup recipe,” Trish says a little too casually as Tyler moves to hand Danny over. “She used to make it for me all the time when we were married.”

Tyler freezes in the middle of sliding Danny into Jamie’s waiting arms and their proximity gives him an up close and personal view of the march of emotions across Jamie’s face, a rictus of complete shock morphing into nausea to the kind of hellfire fury that makes Tyler almost want to run and hide.

“This,” Jamie says tightly even as she gently situates a still-sleeping Danny in her arms and turns to face the woman who Tyler now knows is her ex-wife. “This shit right here is the reason we got divorced, Trish.” She turns back to Tyler, her face abruptly impassive. “I’m gonna go grab Danny’s coat and his backpack; I’ll meet you at the car.”

And then she’s gone, the sharp click of her heels echoing in the suddenly silent security office. Tyler’s at a loss, still unsure what if any response he should have to that sudden announcement and Trish is watching him with a smirk that’s at direct odds with the tension that radiates in her body like she’s expecting Tyler to swing at her.

Hell, that may have been her intention to begin with.

A voice clears from the doorway and they both look that way, finding Jordie leaning around the jamb, her usually warm brown eyes hard. Tyler can see where Jamie gets that thousand yard death stare from.

“Tyler,” he jumps a bit as she addresses him, especially because that hardened stare never leaves Trish. “In case you were wondering what not to do when you’re dating Jamie, just do the exact opposite of whatever you think Trish Sharp would do.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tyler sees Trish’s jaw clench and he imagines he can hear the grinding of her teeth against each other. It seems like Jordie’s words have hit their mark and then some.

“I’ve gotta go,” he announces suddenly to the room at large. “Uh, gotta get Danny home.”

He’s absolutely running away, but he’s running towards Jamie and he figures that counts for something.

***

Jamie mechanically adds ingredients to the cart as she and Tyler walk down the aisle of the grocery store, the recipe for her sister’s chicken noodle soup long since committed to memory. Her ex-wife’s words echoed in her head over and over again and she hasn’t been able to look at Tyler for the last forty-five minutes. Luckily, Danny had woken up briefly when they pulled into the grocery store parking lot and cried pitifully until they agreed that they would all go into the grocery store together and he’d eschewed the cart for the comfort of his father’s arms which means that Tyler is distracted.

“So you were married?” Or at least she had been hoping he was. They’re standing in the middle of the cereal aisle and it’s just them in front of the Rice Krispies and Cocoa Krispies. She glances at him then, but the expression on his face isn’t judgmental, so she shrugs and puts a box of Cocoa Krispies into the cart. Like most hockey players houses, Tyler’s is distinctly lacking in sugary snack food and like most workaholics, Jamie thrives on sugary snack food.

“And here I was hoping that you’d been too busy with Danny to notice me yelling at my ex-wife.” it’s a weak joke, but the corners of Tyler’s mouth quirk up.

“I probably would have known something was up even if she hadn’t said anything,” he says, tilting his head to check Danny when the little boy sniffs piteously against his chest. “It’s the way she was looking at you, like you were the only thing in the world.”

Jamie doesn’t know what her face does, but it’s probably complicated judging by the faint wince that Tyler makes. That was the one thing that had never changed through the entire divorce: the way that Trish looked at her. 

“Sorry,” he says, gently bumping against her with his elbow. “Didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“They weren’t all bad.” she says with a shrug, continuing down the aisle. “In fact, most of them weren’t bad. Trish is a good person, she’s just a shitty wife. Although, I’m not exactly top of my class in spousal perfection.”

When he doesn’t say anything, she elaborates. “It’s our first time really working together since the divorce and I think we’re still figuring out how to separate the personal from the professional.”

“I’m familiar with the feeling; Danny’s mom is a nice enough person, but I wouldn’t exactly nominate her for mother of the year,” Tyler says, running a hand across Danny’s back. The fond expression on his face is almost overwhelming and Jamie finds herself swallowing hard.

“I mean, you got Danny out of the deal. I got a divorce and a one-week stand with an NHL hottie,” the second that the words leave her mouth, she wants to snatch them back. Fortunately for her sanity, Tyler merely quirks an eyebrow at her, his mouth twitching up into a faint smile.

“You think I’m a hottie?” Before Jamie can express her feelings on the matter (yes, she does, but seriously,  _ that’s  _ what he’s taking away from this?), she hears a yelp at the end of the aisle and turns to see a little boy, not much older than Danny racing towards them. He’s wearing a Dallas Stars t-shirt jersey with Tyler’s number on the front of it.

“You’re Tyler Seguin!” he chirrups as an older woman wearing a stricken expression follows close behind.

“Russell,” the woman hisses, catching her son by the hand. “Don’t be rude,” and to them she says, “I am so sorry, you’re his favorite hockey player, but you’re….” she gestures helplessly at the two of them, trying to wrangle her child away as he stares up at Tyler with an enraptured expression. 

“It’s okay,” Tyler says with an easy grin despite the fact that he’s probably exhausted after his game and is standing in the grocery store with his sick kid. “Babe, can you take him?” 

It takes Jamie a beat too long to realize that he’s talking to her and she feels her face flush as she takes Danny because pet names had not been part of the deal when she agreed to this fake relationship. Danny doesn’t even stir when she settles him in her arms and she watches Tyler crouch down to get to his young fan’s level, rooting around his pocket to produce a sharpie.

“Hey bud, how about I sign your shirt?” the little boy’s eyes bulge wildly in excitement and he vibrates in place as Tyler gently shifts him around and scrawls his signature and the number 19 across the boy’s left shoulder.

“Oh my god,” the little boy whispers as he turns back around to face Tyler. “I met Tyler Seguin,” Jamie can’t quite keep a smile off her face as the little boy cajoles a picture out of him, his mother continuing to apologize profusely and then they’re off down the aisle, the little boy loudly recounting the meeting to his mother as if she hadn’t been there beside him the entire time.

“Sorry,” Tyler says as he turns back to her, a wicked twinkle in his eye. “I guess that’s the price of being out in public with an NHL hottie.”

“I bet you think you’re  _ so  _ funny, don’t you?” she says, trying to keep from smiling at the flirtation. It’s a losing battle though. The way his eyes sparkle is catching and she can’t keep the grin off her face.

“I  _ know  _ I’m funny,” he replies flippantly and starts to push the cart down the aisle, leaving her to follow with a still sleeping Danny. The tension that the trip had begun with had been completely erased and they joke and tease each other through the rest of the store.

They make it out of the grocery store without anymore fan encounters and when she sees him yawning as he straps Danny back into his carseat, she takes the keys from him, ignoring his protests. Tyler dozes off in the passenger seat as she drives them home and she watches him at the stoplights, remembering Vegas and waking up in that king-sized bed to find him watching her sleep. She’d blushed and turned her face into the pillow to hide from the heat in his gaze and he’d pulled her back, brushing the hair out of her face and whispering “you’re beautiful”. A horn honks behind them, a brief warning that she’s sitting at a green light and Tyler snuffles in his sleep and Jamie very pointedly returns her gaze to the road ahead and drives.

***

Four days later, the universe proves that it has a cruel sense of irony when Jamie wakes up with a throat that feels like she swallowed glass and a headache that almost knocks her off her feet. Tyler clearly looks like he wants to say something when she stumbles into the kitchen for breakfast, but Jamie just glares at him until he turns his attention back to his morning protein shake.

Unfortunately for Jamie, Tyler turns out to be a traitor.

“Baby girl, what in hell do you think you’re doing?” dragging her burning eyes away from the computer, Jamie stares at the dark-haired woman standing in the office doorway, arms folded across her chest. It might be the fever, but she thinks her sister has gotten taller in the last 24 hours.

“I’m working,” Jamie mumbles, trying not to wince as she swallows, but the expression on her sister’s face tells her is absolutely not successful. 

“No, you’re staring at a screen saver picture of a bunch of kittens in a basket and getting your germs all over the doorknobs.” Jordie says, still glaring. “Get up, I’m sending you home.”

It takes a beat for the words to sink in, but when they do, Jamie scowls at her big sister.

“I’m fine.” Jamie tries to growl, but her throat hurts and honestly, it comes out as more of a whisper. It doesn’t matter that her head feels like it’s full of cotton or her throat was too sore for her to eat breakfast that morning, she’s at work, she’s fine and she’s staying. In the time that it takes her to think through this list, Jordie has crossed the room, pulled her chair away from the desk and grabs her elbow, hauling Jamie to her feet.

“You’re going home, Chubbs. And so help me god, I will call Danni  _ and  _ Pricey if you even think about trying to come back to work today.” Jordie orders, steering her towards the door. Jamie wants to protest, but suddenly being pulled into a standing position has set her head spinning, so she just leans into her big sister as Jordie gathers up her backpack and jacket and then forcibly marches her through the back halls of the AAC.

The full realization of her sister’s treachery doesn’t set in until they walk out the doors into the loading area and find Trish leaning against the side of a large grey truck, clearly waiting for them.

“Nope,” Jamie mutters and tries to turn around, but she’s weak and Jordie has a grip of iron and she’s dragged towards her ex-wife like a naughty puppy, tripping over her own feet.

“Jordie,” she whines pathetically as she’s jerked to a stop in front of the last person on earth that she wants to see right now. Trish won’t make direct eye contact with her, but takes the backpack from Jordie without a word.

“Yeah, I know, baby girl. Your ex-wife isn’t exactly my favorite person in the whole wide world either,” Trish flinches a little as Jordie speaks and it makes some part of Jamie feel bad, that they’re here discussing her like she doesn’t exist, but then she remembers the previous week and the part of Jamie that feels bad is ruthlessly quelled. “But she’s the only one that I actually trust to get you home and into bed without trying to come back to work.”

Jamie looks back and forth between her sister and her ex-wife and grumbles, a reaction that turns into a hacking cough that forcibly bends her at the waist. When she comes back to herself, she’s got Trish holding one arm and Jordie holding the other and she lets herself admit that this isn’t something she can just push through with DayQuil.

“I’m still mad at you,” she tells Trish as she shakes their hands off and slowly starts making her way around the back of the truck to the passenger side. Behind her, Trish and Jordie whisper between themselves, probably about the best way to drive her even crazier, but Jamie shuts it out, focused on getting into the passenger seat without passing out. She’s dozing lightly as the driver’s door opens and Trish swings up into the cab, dark hair gleaming under the dome light.

Jamie feigns a deeper sleep, but she’s never been that good of an actor even when her brain wasn’t leaking out of her nose and Trish’s snort of disbelief tells her as much, but the other woman doesn’t push, just starts the truck and drives.

Jamie is legitimately on the edge of sleep, her breathing growing raspier and heavier when Trish’s phone chirps an annoyingly perky ring and the woman swears softly as she fumbles and answers it. Jamie doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she’s more awake now, so she just keeps her eyes shut and listens.

“Hello?” and then a heavy sigh. “Yes, Jordie. I know. No phone for her until Tyler gets home,” there’s the sound of a single finger tapping on the steering wheel. “For christ’s sake, Jordie, I know how to take care of my wi--” Trish’s words cut off abruptly and the silence in the cab of the truck actually feels like it has weight to it. There’s a long pause and then, Trish’s voice again, quieter, a little more sad. “I’ll take care of her. I promise. Yeah, bye, Jordie.”

There’s another sigh from beside her and Jamie can imagine just what the other woman looks like, probably running her hands through her hair and pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. It’s her ex-wife’s go to when she needs a minute. The silence begins to lull Jamie back to sleep, the slow rhythm of the truck dragging her down towards sleep.

“Jesus, Jamie,” the words are so soft, Jamie almost misses them, more than half-asleep. “I wish you didn’t hate me so much; I think I hate myself enough for the both of us.” 

The words follow Jamie down into unconsciousness.

***

There’s a truck that Tyler doesn’t recognize parked in his driveway, but a total of six people know the passcode to his gate and he just left four of them at the AAC, so he’s not too worried. Clearly knowing what her little sister is like when she’s sick, Jordie had come by the locker room and offered to let Danny spend the night at her house with Alec, so he knows it’ll just be him and Jamie tonight.

At least that’s what he knows until he walks into his kitchen to find the one and only ‘Sharpy’ leaning against the counter, drinking a cup of coffee and looking like she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a while. The scent of herbs and roasting chicken fill the air and there’s a pile of already chopped carrots on the cutting board next to the pot on the stove so clearly Jamie’s family chicken soup recipe had been passed on at some point during their marriage.

“Uh, hi?” he says, putting his bag on the table in the breakfast nook, trying to resist the urge to push his hair into some semblance of an order. He’d taken a half-assed shower after practice, in a rush to come home and check on Jamie after a search of the security office had turned up the angry tiny blonde woman who told him that the “plague victim” had been sent home.

“Jamie’s asleep upstairs,” Sharpy says, tone deceptively mild considering that he’s pretty sure she’d tried to start a fight the last time he saw her.

“How is she?” Tyler asks, eyeing the kitchen like it will give him any clues as to Jamie’s state of being. It does, in an unlikely way. There’s Benn family soup simmering on the stove and a spine-creased paperback sits on the counter near Sharpy with a brightly colored piece of paper marking her spot, the easy way that her long manicured fingers are wrapped around a Dallas Stars coffee mug that she’s clearly taken from his cupboards.

“Drugged to the gills with NyQuil to stop her from trying to go back to work,” Sharpy moves as she speaks, setting the mug down to stir the steaming pot on the stove. “Jamie can be a bit stubborn.”

“Kind of figured that out,” Tyler says, crossing to the kitchen island and seating himself on one of the stools there. A long moment of silence stretches between them, the only sounds the gentle tap of the wooden spoon in the metal pot and the soft snoring of a dog asleep on the breakfast nook bench. Tyler angles himself a little to check and finds Cash with his head buried in a sweatshirt that he’s pretty sure belongs to the woman at the stove. Turning his attention back to Sharpy, he watches her slide a pile of chopped onion into the pot before turning back to him.

“Sharpy,” he begins and her eyes meet his in surprise, clearly not expecting him to address her with so much familiarity. “Why are you in my house?” a faint flush touches the woman’s cheeks and she looks down for a minute.

“I drove her home to make sure she wouldn’t come back to work.” Sharpy says, but her eyes shift away as soon as they meet his and Tyler thinks that Danny lies better than the woman in front of him.

“Yeah and somehow you’re here in my kitchen making the special soup that she taught you to make while you were married. I think that’s going a bit above and beyond.” Tyler says and the kitchen falls silent, tension filling the air behind them. Sharpy looks like maybe she’s giving a brief consideration to punching him in the face, but given his career path, it’s a look Tyler’s familiar with getting.

“Well?” he prompts when no answer appears to be forthcoming.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sharpy snaps. “I’ve still got feelings for my ex-wife and she just… doesn’t,” despite the outburst, wary eyes assess Tyler, clearly waiting for his reaction. The old Tyler would have gotten mad, would have shouted at this challenge and thrown Sharpy out, but the new Tyler knows what it’s like to have your heart twisted into the shape of love, painful and overwhelming and oh so good.

“It’s probably a shitty consolation prize, but she still loves you, I think,” Tyler says because he feels like he’s spent enough time with Jamie to know this simple fact about her.. “I mean, she thinks you’re a dick of the highest order right now, but she definitely still cares about you.”

Sharpy looks like she can’t decide if she wants to cry, scream, or hit him and again Tyler’s familiar with the feeling. He stands up and goes to the fridge, reaching into the back of the top shelf and grabs two beers before twisting their tops off and bringing them back to the island. Sharpy is still standing there, watching him with unsure eyes as he holds a beer out to her. She takes it slowly, clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Here’s to being stupidly into Jamie Benn,” he says and holds his beer up in a toast. It takes a minute, but finally she reaches across the counter to clink her bottle against his. “Tell me how not to fuck it up,”

Sharpy takes a long swig of beer and then sets the bottle down on the counter, turning back to the pot on the stove to stir it. She glances over her shoulder, a sad smile curling the edges of her mouth and says, “I don’t know how long you’ve got, but you might want to take notes.”

***

“No,” the voice croaks from the doorway and Tyler looks up from his perusal of Sharpy’s camera roll to find Jamie standing in the doorway to the living room, the comforter from the guest bed draped over her head and clutched tightly to her chest so she looks like a flowery ghost. She’s clearly half-awake, dark hair falling in her eyes and the poutiest expression Tyler’s ever seen on her face. He glances at Sharpy who rolls her eyes and goes back to scrolling through her photos, searching for one specific photo from a Halloween when they’d been married that she insists he has to see in order to fully understand Jamie as a person.

“No what?” Tyler asks as Jamie shuffles into the room, headed straight towards them.

“Whatever this is,” she rasps, gesturing limply between the two of them with her blanket covered arm. “I don’t like it.” As if to enforce her words, she flops down into the six inches of space between them on the couch, wriggling around to force he and Sharpy apart and then curls into Tyler’s side. He slides an arm around her as she burrows in tighter all the while pressing her heels into Sharpy’s thigh, pushing the other woman away from them.

“I get it, Chubbs; you wanna cuddle your boo.” Sharpy says, not looking up from her phone even as she stands, dodging out of range as Jamie levels a half-assed kick in her direction. The older woman looks up then, just long enough to give Tyler a wink and disappears back into the kitchen. He’s learned a lot in the last two hours, mostly that Sharpy has a wicked sense of humor and despite the fact that she’s got some complicated feelings about Jamie, he thinks they might be able to be friends.

He’s considering it a moment of personal growth rather than the absolute insanity that it probably is.

The woman in his arms snuffles against his t-shirt, and makes a soft sound of contentment. This new side of Jamie, clingy and warm and a little needy, is a lot to take in, but as she presses her face more firmly into his chest and the tension slowly bleeds from her body, making her go lax against him, he finds himself enjoying it.

After all, this isn’t permanent so he’s going to take what he can get.

* * *

**If your raid is going well, you’re at the wrong house.**

“Read this,” Trish blinks at the phone being rudely shoved into her face and with a sigh, takes her ex-sister-in-law’s wrist, pushing her hand back so that her eyes can focus properly on the screen.

And then she winces, sucking air in sharply between her teeth.

“Not it,” Jordie says. “I was ‘it’ last time and I am freely passing the buck here.”

“She hates me,” Trish counters and just gets an eye roll and a none too gentle shove from Jordie towards the door.

“Jamie couldn’t hate you if she tried. And trust me, after the divorce, she tried. Now go find her before she does something stupid.”

“She’s your little sister,” Trish tries again and just gets the office door shut in her face.

“I already saw it,” Jamie says ten minutes later after Trish has failed spectacularly at getting anyone,  _ literally anyone else _ , to talk to her ex-wife. “And I don’t want to talk about it. Jaq already tried to make me talk about it and I threw a donut at her.” Trish glances across the security office where Jaq is parked behind one of the other desks in the room, reading something on her phone. Without even looking up from the screen, the curly haired woman points at a white smear of what Trish is pretty sure is powdered sugar across the chest of her black sweatshirt.

“If you throw a donut at me, I’ll just punch you,” Trish says and drops into the chair next to Jamie’s desk. Her ex-wife grumbles something that is probably just a whole lot of swear words and drops her head onto the desk. They haven’t talked about Trish outing their past relationship to Seguin or the conversation she’d walked into at Seguin’s house, but Jamie had sent her a picture of a snake in a sombrero the other day and Trish has chosen to accept that as proof that she was at least somewhat forgiven. 

Jordie’s stopped glaring at her every time she walks by the open door so she’s probably in the clear.

“You want to go get drunk on your lunch break?” Trish asks because it’s worked in the past for things that one could consider far less important. “I could take you somewhere awful like T.G.I. Friday’s and stuff you full of shitty margaritas and bottomless mozzarella sticks.”

“Seriously,” Jaq says from across the office and Trish tilts her head in that direction. The younger woman looks affronted, her upturned nose wrinkling at the both of them. “How are either of you considered functional adults?”

Against the desk, Jamie mumbles something that is definitely a swear word.

“We walk a very fine line,” Trish says and goes off to tell Jordie that Jamie doesn’t want to get drunk so there’s nothing she can do about it right now.

‘Seguin Scoring Shortage Due to Public Personal Issues Off the Ice?’ is a little on the nose as far as headlines go, but it’s clearly one that puts fear in the hearts of the Stars leadership because when Trish sees Jamie two hours later, the tattooed woman slams the door to the security office open like a hurricane entering the room.

“We’re going on a PR trip to the zoo,” Jamie says through teeth gritted so tightly that Trish is legitimately worried for her jaw. “With cameras and PR and cameras. We’re going to be a big happy family… with cameras.” Jamie’s hands are in white-knuckled fists at her sides and Trish shares a look with Jaq across the security office. The other woman holds her hands up in the universal sign for ‘keep me out of this’ and goes back to her phone.

Trish texts Jordie, Eryn, and Carey in that order [J _ amie’s freaking out about some Stars PR thing, like really freaking out _ ], and settles in to wait.

Less than a minute later, Jamie’s phone starts buzzing across the desk like it’s possessed. She grabs it, staring at the notifications flashing across the screen before turning to glare at Trish.

“I hate you,” the younger woman bites out.

“Do you really though?” Trish asks, trying not to smile as the phone in Jamie’s hand continues to buzz. It’s hard to read at a certain angle, but she’s pretty sure one of those names that flashes on the screen says “Croz”.

“Yeah,” Jamie says as her phone starts to actually ring, Eryn Ekblad’s contact picture flashing on the screen. “I really do.”

***

“Whoa! Look at that!” Danny and Alec both race towards the lion enclosure in their match Stars jerseys and shorts, looking for all the world like a pair of brothers on a trip to the zoo. Of course, the single camera operator following right behind them sort of ruins the illusion.

Tyler’s hand is warm around hers, their fingers tangled together in a way that’s familiar and comfortable and it’s almost enough for Jamie to forget the fact that they’ve got a small entourage following them through the Dallas Zoo, a camera crew with a few extra security team members to keep curious onlookers back. Danny had insisted on inviting Alec to come along and someone on the PR team had produced identical Seguin jerseys out of nowhere (not that she was naive enough to not imagine that every single bit of this trip had been skillfully planned) and they’ve been wandering ever since.

“You look like you’re about to crawl out of your skin,” Tyler murmurs as they join the boys at the fence around the enclosure. Danny and Alec are focused on the male lion sunning himself on a rock and Jamie glances at the camera crew behind them before turning back to the lion and leaning her head against Tyler’s shoulder.

“I feel a little weird, doing this in front of a camera,” she says, using the angle of their bodies to hide her mouth from the camera. They’re not wearing mikes (the camera crew says they’ll be miked for the private behind the scenes tour later) and she doesn’t really want anyone else overhearing this conversation.

“You get used to it.” Tyler says, releasing her hand to slide his arm around her waist. Before she’d gotten sick, Jamie would have assumed this was an act for the cameras, continuing to play out their faux relationship for the cameras. But in reality, their physical closeness has increased -- tangling their feet together under the breakfast table had become the norm for them -- and Jamie has gone from reminding herself that this entire relationship is fake to relishing the low swoop in her stomach every time he touches her.

Just like now as he gazes down into her eyes, a faint smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

“Dad! Look!” Danny tugs on Tyler’s hand then and the spell is broken and Jamie feels her cheeks heat slightly as they both turn to appropriately ooh and aah over the lion who has rolled onto his side and is panting in the summer sun.

Tyler makes a point of touching her for the rest of the trip, holding her hand in the reptile house, touching her shoulder to point out the antics of a couple of monkeys in the primate house, wrapping his arms around her from behind as they stand in front of the lower level viewing platform to watch the seals swim back and forth through their pool. And just for that time, ignoring the cameras around them, Jamie leans into it, lets her head fall against his shoulder and presses in closer. It even makes their organized behind the scenes encounters bearable, especially when the Stars entertainment reporter makes a point of asking her questions as well.

When the boys both start to flag from the heat and the excitement of the day, a quick conversation with the camera crew ends with a few closing shots of all four of them waving goodbye to the elephants and then to the fans who will eventually watch the tape. They load Alec and Danny into Tyler’s SUV, both boys falling asleep almost as soon as their seatbelts click and Jamie climbs into the passenger seat, stretching her legs out and letting her head fall back against the seat.

There’s a soft brush against her fingers and then Tyler takes her hand, resting them there on the console. He’s looking at her almost like that time in Las Vegas, his thumb gently stroking the back of her hand.

“Is this okay?” he asks and that feeling swoops through Jamie’s stomach again. 

There are no cameras around, but this time she knows. 

This isn’t play-acting, the two of them pretending for the public.

Not anymore.

And she doesn’t know what to do with that information so she does the only thing she can do in that moment.

“Yeah,” she replies softly and laces their fingers together. His smile lights up the car.

***

More photographs of them climbing out of the car after the zoo trip appear on Deadspin the next day. 

The photos are shot from inside the security gate.

***

Most people don’t request patrol officers by name when reporting a crime, but Ben Bishop is beginning to realize that Jamie Benn is not ‘most people’. She’s waiting for him on the front steps of Seguin’s mansion, arms folded across her chest and looking a lot like someone pissed in her Cheerios.

The dark-haired pretty woman who stands beside her has the same round face as Benn, but where as Jamie Benn is all sharp angles and scowls, this woman looks warmer, her eyes more open and approachable. It’s a face that Ben is very familiar with, having seen it almost every morning that he steps through the door of the bakery down the street from the precinct.

He mentally kicks himself for not putting ‘Jamie Benn’ and ‘Benn Baking Co.’ together as he climbs out his squad car and approaches the two women on the steps.

“There’s a rear gate for the landscapers and maintenance in the back.” Jamie says when he gets close enough, clearly not in the mood for small talk. “It doesn’t have a code and it looks like someone forced the lock.” 

“But I don’t think you’re going to find anything,” the woman who makes the best damn cinnamon scones he’s ever tasted in his life chimes in.

“And you are?” Ben isn’t dumb, he’s almost 100% certain that this woman is Jamie’s sister, but he’s angling for a name. He’s aiming for smooth, but doesn’t know if he quite gets there. Either way, it would be nice to be able to call her something other than ‘Magic Baking Woman’ even in his own head. 

“This is Jordie, my sister,” Jamie explains and the fact that she doesn’t even bat an eye tells Ben how intently she’s focused on the break-in. “My nephew’s been staying with us for a few days and I asked her to come pick up the boys to take them to her house. Tyler’s a little upset.”

As if summoned by the mere mention of his existence, the same little sandy-haired boy from the other night opens the front door behind the two women and calls out, “Jamie?” 

The transition is immediate and gone is the gruff expression as Jamie turns to him, putting an arm around his shoulders as he comes out on the top step and leans into her. Ben didn’t think that maternal is a way that he would have ever described Jamie Benn until this exact moment.

“Um, there’s a lady on the intercom,” Ben turns to look down the driveway where he can see that a vehicle has pulled up to the gate. “She says her name is Carey,” The two sisters exchange quizzical glances that speak volumes before Jamie glances back down at Danny. 

“Go ahead and buzz her in, okay?” suddenly, possible break in or not, Ben is very much aware that he is no longer the priority in this situation. Clearly the presence of Carey is an unusual situation, unusual enough to draw a worried furrow between Jamie’s eyes and erase some of the earlier agitation. 

A grey compact pulls into the round drive, parking behind his cruiser and Ben watches as a dark-haired woman in jeans and a dark blue Nashville Predators sweatshirt climbs out, backpack in hand and beeps the car locked before striding up the sidewalk. A pair of mirrored sunglasses get pushed to the top of her head as she moves towards them. She’s beautiful, but there’s circles under her eyes that suggest she hasn’t been sleeping very well and Ben gives her a nod as she walks past him.

It says something about the type of company that Jamie Benn keeps that the other woman doesn’t even blink at the presence of a police squad car.

“Uh, hey there, Pricey,” Jamie says and Ben watches her scan her friend from head to toe. Beside the security consultant, Jordie is also eyeballing the new arrival with absolutely zero subtlety. “What brings you to Dallas? On a Tuesday? With no warning?”

“Just wanted to bask in your warm and caring personality, Chubbs,” The woman sometimes known as Pricey says and then steps past Jamie towards Jordie, who opens her arms to hug the tall slender woman so tightly that Ben thinks he hears bones creak with the force of it.

“How very rude and obviously a lie,” Jamie says, giving Ben a shrug as if to say ‘what can you do?’ He shrugs back as though he has any idea at all about what’s happening in front of him. “You can bask in my warm and caring personality perfectly fine over Skype. Why are you really here?”

Carey pauses at the front door, Jordie already leading her inside and pulls the mirrored shades she’d been wearing off her head, leaving a few dark strands falling across her face. Jamie’s still facing forward so she misses the faint grimace on Carey’s face, but Ben definitely doesn’t. He knows that grimace and the inevitable truth bomb that follows it and takes a half a step back so he’s not in the blast radius.

“I figured I’d tell you I was pregnant in person instead of over Skype. Thought you’d like the personal touch a little more,” Carey says then turns and follows Jordie into the house. Jamie stands there on the front steps in front of Ben, a frozen expression on her face as if her brain is running through her friend’s words over and over again, trying to fully grasp them.

Then she smiles at Ben, or at least shows him her teeth in a way that might be intended to be a smile and gestures towards the house, “Would you like some coffee, Officer Bishop? I think this might take a little longer than I thought it would.”

***

Tyler gets three texts in rapid succession as he’s driving home from practice and he’s glad he’s at a stop light when he cues his navigation system to read them.

_ Jamie: We literally have nothing in this house that a pregnant woman would want to eat. _

_ Jamie: Do you know what pregnant women like to eat? _

_ Jamie: Okay, so this pregnant woman wants a double double from In-And-Out and French fries from McDonalds. Please and thank you! _

Tyler knows Jamie. He knows that she’s competent and he also knows that she’s and so he takes a deep breath, flicks on his blinker and heads towards the In-and-Out.

Things make a lot more sense an hour later after he’s watched an exhausted looking Carey Price demolish the food that he brings home and then disappear upstairs with Jamie, yawning broadly. Jamie comes back down ten minutes later and hems and haws in front of the couch before dropping down next to him. The dogs are on her in seconds, Cash beating out the older dog to flop across he and Jamie, but she doesn’t protest the weight or the way that Marshall scrambles onto the couch and then flops down on her arm, effectively trapping it to her side.

“Everything okay?” he asks, setting his phone down. Officer Bishop had been able to reassure extra patrols in the area at night and even though Tyler is still worried, the presence of Jamie and the knowledge that she’s not going to let anything happen to Danny is reassuring.

“You are about to witness some absolute ridiculousness,” Jamie says, dragging her arm out from under Cash, phone in hand and fires off a quick text. “Please don’t think any less of me.”

“I will never be anything less than in awe of you, sweetheart” Tyler says, maybe a little too earnestly because Jamie shoots him a startled look. Silence falls between the two of them, their eyes locked and the moment stretches on. It’s so quiet that he feels like she can hear his heart beating it’s way out of his chest, but then she tilts her head and a soft smiles curves up the corners of her mouth.

“You are so not smooth, Seguin,” she says and he’s just about to protest when she leans up as best as she can while being pinned by two chubby dogs and brushes a kiss across his cheek.

“We should talk about this,” Tyler says as she slowly pulls back, still smiling. “About us,”

“Because this is something, right?” He continues, watching her face closely for a sign of how she’s feeling. He knows what he’s been feeling since long before that trip to the zoo, since before he saw her standing by the rink in Dallas. “I’m not imagining it? This isn’t just a byproduct of the two of us pretending to be together?”

“No,” Jamie says after a long pause, of just watching his face. “You’re definitely not imaging this,” the feeling of relief that floods Tyler is almost overwhelming and he’s not sure who moves first, but then they’re kissing and it’s everything he remembers from that week in Las Vegas. Somewhere between a hotel room on the Strip and this moment, Tyler has fallen head over heels in love with Jamie Benn. 

Cash grumps at them, probably because there’s too much movement and not enough attention being paid to him and jumps off their laps, causing Jamie to break away from the kiss with a grunt as a dog paw pushes into her stomach. They’re both smiling like idiots and Tyler can’t help swooping back in for another kiss.

Jamie laughs against his mouth and Tyler wraps his arms around her, pulling her in tight with her head tucked under his chin. They fit perfectly together and the urge to keep on kissing her washes over him like a tide.

Based on the way that she tightens her fingers in the front of his shirt and holds him close, he’s not the only one feeling the pull.

“We still need to talk,” he says after a long while and Jamie grumbles under her breath, but lets him pull away. They resituate themselves on the couch, still close enough to be touching in at least four different places and Tyler takes a deep breath and just lets it all out.

He tells Jamie about seeing her in the lobby of the Mirage, giving Sidney Crosby crap about being boring because he didn’t want to go see any shows, about how easy that week had been with the two of them spending time together, abandoning all their other plans in favor of doing ridiculous tourist-y things together and retreating to his hotel room at the end of the day. About how he felt falling asleep with her, warm and sated in his arms, about how he’d been dangerously close to using the a certain word right then and there.

He doesn’t say love at first sight, but he thinks she gets it. 

Jamie chews on her lip as he tells her about the call he got before the award ceremony, that Danny’s mother had been borderline hysterical and begging him to take their son because she couldn’t do it anymore. After that, his whole world had been Danny and he thinks he sees understanding in her eyes when he explains that he’d thought about her but that his entire life had been consumed by a little boy who had been pulled away from the only stability that he’d known and left with a man who might as well have been a stranger.

“You did a great job,” Jamie says when he takes a breath, reaches up and runs a hand through his hair. “You’ve got a great kid,”

He has to kiss her for that, pulling her forward until she’s straddling his lap, arms wrapped low around her waist. But this time it’s Jamie’s turn to pull back and look down at him, a conflicted expression on her face. Tyler’s pretty sure he knows what’s coming, so he just sits there, stroking his hands over her thighs.

“So when I met you in Vegas,” she bites her lip again and then sighs. “I’d been divorced for a grand total of three days,” Tyler nods because he’s heard this story from Sharpy.

“Sharpy and I got married because we thought…” she pauses, head tilting as she thinks about it. “No, actually, we probably weren’t thinking. We are notoriously bad at thinking especially when we’re  _ not _ thinking together.”

Tyler knows that feeling. He’d gone through a spate of that himself in Boston. He remembers his conversation with Sharpy in the kitchen, the other woman sitting across the table from him, peeling at the label on her beer. ‘ _ Look, I’m an asshole and Jamie isn’t and it wasn’t going to work long-term ever because the two of us together is… volatile. We’re still working through it because we were married for two years and were together for a year before and friends before that and, fuck, it’s just a lot of history and it’s messy.”  _

“The most important thing is that I married Sharpy and it didn’t go well and I still  _ love  _ her, but I’m not  _ in  _ love with her. And…” she cuts off, looking frustrated as if the words aren’t coming out right. Tyler leans up off the couch and kisses her gently, insistently and some of the tension loosens out of her shoulders.

“Sharpy and I talked,” he says and her eyes lock onto his, one eyebrow arching ever so slightly. “Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t a bad talk.”

“Was this what I stumbled into that time I had the flu?” she asks, but there’s a hint of a smile to take any sting out of the words. “I thought you two might be conspiring against me.”

“Absolutely. We were conspiring about how to make sure that you were happy,” Tyler says. Her eyes crinkle at the corners and she shakes her head before leaning into kiss him again, slow and soft. Their impromptu makeout is interrupted by Jamie’s phone chirping from the arm of the couch and with a grumble, she breaks away to flick through her phone screen. She doesn’t go far though, settling her back against Tyler’s side and pulling his left arm firmly around her waist as the FaceTime call connects.

“Whaddup sluts?” Jamie says with gusto and Tyler leans his head against hers to stare at the phone because there’s a very familiar flash of red on the screen before the camera focuses on a pretty dark haired woman with her hair loose around her face, a fresh bruise dusting the curve of her cheek. A male voice groans something in the background and Tyler thinks he hears French, a suspicion which is confirmed when the woman on screen turns her face away and replies in rapid fire French before turning back to the screen, looking mildly irritated.

“One day you’ll be more professional on the phone,” the woman says and she has a faint accent, her voice soft and a little raspy.

“And today is not that day, oh Captain my Captain,” Jamie quips and Tyler can’t help but laugh, drawing the full attention of the woman on the phone. She narrows her eyes at the screen and then speaks in French again. Tyler never picked up any French, but he definitely picks up his name in the softened syllables.

The use of his name clearly gets the intended effect because a few seconds later, Claude Giroux’s face shoves in front of the camera, squints at Jamie and Tyler and then grumbles something and disappears again. The other woman smiles fondly and turns her attention back to the phone.

“He’s grumpier than usual, Danni. Is Claude having a bad day?” Jamie says and Tyler files that away for future reference. Given that Jamie’s best friend appears to be the head of security for Nashville and he’s pretty sure that Marner tried to kill him in that last game against Toronto, he’s starting to wonder if there’s anyone in the NHL that his girlfriend  _ doesn’t  _ know.

“You woke him up,” Danni says, that fond look still on her face. “Naptime is important in this household, but you didn’t call me to talk about my boyfriend’s nap schedule. What’s up?”

“Pricey just showed up at my front door here in Dallas and I know for a fact that the Predators are in New York right now so I thought I’d ask if you have any idea what’s going on?” Jamie asks and out of view of the screen, she laces her fingers with Tyler’s as if seeking comfort from his touch. 

On the screen, Danni shrugs. “She asked to be taken off the rotation for this trip, said something about a family emergency. I had to do some creative juggling with the schedule. Burky is covering the trip under protest and by protest, I mean, she keeps sending me sad selfies with Snapchat filters.”

The woman stops and quirks a look at the screen. “Do I need to be concerned about this, Benny?” Tyler can’t see Jamie’s face dead on, but the tiny in-screen picture shows her lips pursed and her eyebrows furrowed. He rubs his free hand up and down her back, trying to give comfort any way that he can because he feels like he’s missing some information here.

“I mean, probably not any more than usual?” Jamie says, her voice pitching higher at the end. “Like medium concerned, maybe?” Danni’s lips twitch like she’s either considering scowling or smiling, but neither expression fully settles.

“If you two are done,” a sleep rough voice growls in English from off screen and Jamie snorts. 

“Go see your grumpy ass boyfriend,” she says, leaning more heavily against Tyler. “I’ll let you know how things go with Pricey.” The FaceTime call ends on Danni’s unimpressed face and Jamie sags against him for a brief second before she squirms around and presses her face into the side of his neck.

Tyler is still reeling from the fact that he can do this but he gets with the program quickly, wrapping both arms around her and presses a kiss to her forehead. Jamie groans dramatically against his neck as if she’s trying to burrow into him to hide.

“I’m assuming none of that conversation was good?” He asks, running his hand across her back.

“It means that Pricey found out she’s pregnant, freaked out, and responded with a frightening lack of maturity considering the fact that she used to handle firearms on a daily basis.” Jamie sighs against his neck and the puff of air raises goosebumps all over. He can’t remember the last time someone affected him like this.

“Oh please,” a voice says from behind them and the moment is broken as Tyler almost gets clipped in the chin by the top of Jamie’s head when she jerks around. Their house guest comes around the end of the couch to stand in front of them. She’s discarded the blindingly yellow Predators sweatshirt and with the way that she’s standing hunched in front of them, she looks small and sad and not at all like the woman that Jamie is always talking about like the second coming of Wonder Woman. “You freaked out because Ben & Jerry’s stopped making Oatmeal Cookie Chunk.”

“That is a perfectly valid reason to freak out,” Jamie says archly, but Tyler can see the faint flush on her cheeks. “That was my sole reason for getting out of bed that winter.”

“Whatever you say, Benny,” Carey says and takes a step closer to the couch. Tyler is about to offer to move so she can sit next to Jamie when she just climbs into the space between his side and the arm of the couch and fits herself against him, resting her head against his chest. He freezes, unsure of the protocol for cuddling his girlfriend’s best friend, but Jamie just gives him a fond smile and put her head down next to Carey’s, both of them curling into him. 

When Tyler wraps his arm around Carey’s slim shoulders, she sags, a faint shudder rippling through her body. He remembers his first few weeks after finding out that he was going to be a father and the alternating panic and wonder that would wash over him at random moments. He can only imagine what Carey is feeling but this is something that he can absolutely sympathize about. He tilts his head over and rests it against the top of her dark head and feels more of the tension drain from her shoulders.

“So I left the pregnancy test on the bathroom counter,” Carey says, her voice barely audible against Tyler’s chest. She breaks off and Jamie makes an inquisitive noise, reaching a hand over to grip Carey’s hand.

“And I maybe didn’t leave a note?” she finishes and then lifts her head to look at them sheepishly.

“Wow, Pricey,” Jamie says deadpan. “You really had a fight or flight moment there, didn’t you?” The other woman grimaces and settles back into Tyler’s side. But it’s not a good hiding spot because Jamie stretches across him to plan a big smacking kiss on Carey’s forehead.

“I’ll figure out a way to let him know that you’re okay,” Jamie says and then tilts her head up so she can look at Tyler again as if asking silent permission. “And you can stay as long as you want, okay?”

“Yeah, of course.” He says and gives into his instinct to squeeze Carey’s shoulders again, feeling even more of the tension drop from her body. “I’ll apologize in advance if any of the dogs try to smother you in the middle of the night.”

Carey looks up at him and there’s a faint spark of mischief in her eyes as she tells him earnestly, “Keep up that kind of sweet talk and you might just find yourself dating Jamie  _ and _ me.”

“Oh please,” Jamie says flippantly. “Like we haven’t tried that before.” 

As the two women in his arms start snicking, Tyler makes a mental note to check in with Sharpy about how to tell if Jamie’s being sarcastic or not.

***

“You know you’re going to be a great mom, right?” Jamie says later, the two of them sitting on the bed in the guest room and watches Carey’s eyes fill with tears.

“Oh fuck,” Jamie says helplessly as Carey bursts into tears and wraps her arms around the other woman. She fumbles for her phone with one hand and manages to swipe it open to her contacts with minimal struggle. The call connects after two rings and all Jamie can do is hold the phone out from her body so Eks can see Carey sobbing into her chest.

“Well fuck, Benny, what did you say to her?” Eks says, staring aghast at the screen, her brown eyes wide with horror.

“I told her that she’s going to be a great mom,” Jamie hisses and watches as the view of the phone suddenly shifts as it clearly slides from the hand of the woman holding it, landing on the floor with an audible thunk.

“You didn’t tell Eks yet?” Jamie asks, staring at her view of Eks’ shoes and pant legs.

Carey shakes her head against Jamie’s collar bone, still sniffling.

“She seems to be taking the news really well,” Jamie says and hangs up so that she can wrap both arms around Carey again. “Just let it out, Pricey. We’ll make sure I didn’t break Eks too badly later,”

Once she’s all cried out, Carey crashes out again, for real this time, Marshall curled up against her back like the big spoon and Jamie scrubs a hand across her forehead as she quietly pulls the door shut behind her. Carey is usually the one that Jamie relies on to be level-headed and unflappable and she can’t help but feel a little off-kilter as she walks down the hall towards the other guest room. They haven’t talked about the room situation yet, her and Tyler, but it feels like her own space and the way she feels right now, that’s just what she needs. Her phone is plugged in on the nightstand and she thumbs through her contacts until she finds the person she needs.

“Unless you’re calling to explain why Pricey called me at ass o’clock in the morning, yelled that she couldn’t go on the Preds’ East Coast trip and then hung up without waiting for an answer, I don’t want to talk to you,” Burky says snippily in lieu of an actual greeting. Jamie doesn’t take it personally because part of Burky’s charm is her imitation of a prickly hedgehog. “Subban is having feelings and he assumes that because we work together that I have any effect at all on what his girlfriend does. I have zero effect on anything, Benny. I barely have an effect on myself. I cannot handle this man and his  _ feelings _ .”

“I know,” Jamie says, unable to keep from chirping her younger coworker. “It’s a miracle that you even have the ability to put your pants on in the morning.”

“ _ Washington,  _ Benny. I have to go to fucking  _ Washington.”  _ Burky sounds pained now, dramatic as always.

“I mean, I guess you could hope that he gets traded within the next two days,” Jamie teases. “Or you could just nut up and tell him you want to make out with his beardy face and have his stupidly attractive babies.”

Burky mutters something in Russian that Jamie is sure is extremely offensive and hangs up on her. Undeterred, Jamie returns to her contacts and scrolls down to the next name on her call list.

“Is there some reason Burky just texted me that you’re a traitor and told me not to answer your calls?” Brandyn Saad asks over the pounding thud of a heavy bassline and the cheering of what is probably an ungodly amount of bachelor parties given that it’s a Saturday night.

“Because she’s a child with a crush and doesn’t know how to manage her feelings about it.” Jamie retorts.

“Ah yes,” Brandyn says as sagely as possible given that ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ is blaring in the background. “The-Sexy-Goalie-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.” The music level drops abruptly which tells Jamie that Brandyn has left the floor of the strip club and has probably sequestered herself in the hallway that runs to the dancers’ dressing rooms. Jamie can imagine her leaning against the wall in the thing that Fetish passes off as it’s non-dancer uniform: skin tight cargo pants, combat boots, black tank-top with ‘security’ across the chest and her dark hair pulled back from her face in a high sleek ponytail. It’s a look that Jamie has rocked herself on a number of occasions. 

“Yeah, that guy,” Jamie agrees because they’d all drunkenly agreed one night not to mention him by name for Burky’s sake and it feels like tempting fate to break with tradition even now two years later. “Hey, do you still have the number for that guy who used to do freelance for us out of Detroit? The one with the face tattoo?”

“I think so,” Brandyn says and suddenly her voice sounds tinny and far away as she puts Jamie on speakerphone. “You looking to do some extracurricular less than legal activities, Benny? ”

“Extenuating circumstances,” Jamie says. “Just send it over when you get it, okay? I’ve got some stuff I need him to check out.”

“A-Ok, boss.” Brandyn says and really, she’s Jamie’s favorite of all her coworkers at Gladiator Security. “Just please don’t have him hack Nikki’s Instagram again, Jamie. She gets pissed off and then I get yelled at.”

“It was one time!” Jamie protests. “And she wouldn’t accept my follow request!”

* * *

**Departmental Intelligence Units… aren’t very.**

Across the elegantly decorated office, Jamie looks like the very epitome of cool as she leans against the desk, legs crossed at the ankle and arms folded loosely across her chest. In a power move that Cam totally respects, the head of Dallas Stars security is wearing a sleek black business suit over a silky victory green undershirt and a pair of lethal looking stilettos, her dark hair slicked back sharply from her face. 

“I mean, I guess I could see it,” she says quietly. Val tilts her head down towards Cam, a questioning look in her blue eyes. The office is dead quiet so even speaking at an almost-whisper is loud.

“How Benny keeps getting all these hot people chasing after her,” Cam clarifies and Val rolls her eyes. “Objectively speaking, she’s fucking smokin’.” Jamie blushes, color dusting her high cheekbones and leaning against the bookshelf in the opposite corner, Jordie just shakes her head.

“Aw Cammy,” a voice coos from Cam’s left side. “You think I’m hot?” Cam turns her head to look up (an infuriating notion all on it’s own) into Trish Sharp’s smirking face.

“The hotness of your body in no way compensates for your shitty ass personality, Sharpy,” she replies and Jamie honest to god snorts, choking on a laugh. Trish’s smirk falls away and she narrows her eyes, but Cam just smiles sweetly and turns away.

“You’re going to have to get over it at some point,” Trish breathes out next to her, almost too quiet to hear over the rustle of people settling themselves again.

“You broke Jamie’s heart. And she may have forgiven you, but think you’d be surprised how long  _ I _ can hold a grudge,” Cam mutters out of the corner of her mouth. Whatever Trish is going to say next is cut off as Jamie’s face shifts, sliding into a politely bland expression that Cam’s familiar with and she schools her own features into a similar manner, watching the women standing around the office straighten and square their shoulders.

“What are you doing in my office?” Cam nearly snorts at the man’s complete lack of situational awareness as he strides into his office, straight towards Jamie. Especially since it gives the women tucked into the corners the ability to circle behind him, creating a barrier between the door and Mark from PR.

“We’re here to trespass you from the building, Mr. Grange,” Jamie says pleasantly as if they’re having a discussion about the weather. Cam can’t see the man’s face, but his spine stiffens and his body language begins to emulate the posture of a schoolyard bully, shoulders squaring up and trying to use his height to intimidate.

Cam has seen Jamie Benn Superman punch someone unconscious, but it turns out that Mark from HR is dumber than she thought. 

“You’re here to what?” he says, taking half a step forward towards Jamie who doesn’t do anything more than blink infuriatingly slow and give him a lazy half-smile, still slouched against the desk.

“We’re here to trespass you from the building, Mr. Grange,” she says again as though explaining something to a very young child. “I’ll give you a few minutes to get your personal effects.”

“What the fuck?” the man says, his voice rising with each word. “What the hell are you doing in my fucking office?”

“I can repeat it a third time if you want,” Jamie says, finally straightening out of her insouciant slouch. In heels, she has about an inch on the PR guy and Cam feels her lips twitch because she’s seen this act before: Jamie Benn, Benevolent Predator; eerily calm even with the scent of blood in the water. “But I think we both know why I’m here,”

That stops the PR guy dead in his tracks and on cue, Jordie gently clears her throat. The man spins, finding the four of them waiting there for him and the color drains from his face.

“A word of advice, Mr. Grange,” Slowly, he turns back to Jamie whose smile becomes less amused and more shark-like as she steps forward, invading the guy’s personal space even though she doesn’t touch him. “If you’re going to give the home address of a hockey team’s star player to the paparazzi, you probably shouldn’t do it via a company computer.”

“I-I, don’t know-” Jamie tsks, effectively cutting off his stammering excuse and steps back. Cam bites back a smile at how pale the man goes.

“You did and I have proof. And honestly? The Stars are more than capable of getting publicity without you trying to drum it up by forcing Tyler Seguin to fit your mold of an ideal hockey star.” Jamie says even as Mark starts stuttering protestations again, speaking right over the top of the man. “And you should never have brought Tyler’s kid into it because that made me not like you very much, Mark. And I’m told I can be very mean when I don’t like someone.”

Mark from HR doesn’t say another word as he gathers his personal effects from the desk or as the team of women all but perp-march him out the front doors of the AAC. It’s not quite a parade of shame, but there are enough staff in the building that it does not go unnoticed and whispers follow them through the halls.

“I’m sure Mr. Seguin’s lawyers will be in touch,” Jamie says saccharinely sweet as she nudges Mark out the glass doors of the ownership entrance. “I wouldn’t show up for any games in the near future.” And shuts the door behind him, turning and walking away without a second glance. Cam and the rest of the team pivot on their heels and follow after her because a show of force is nothing without a dramatic exit.

“I don’t know why everyone thinks you’re so scary,” Jordie says as they round the corner out of sight of the glass doors and ups her pace just enough to be able to poke Jamie in the shoulder. The poke turns into a slap fight between the siblings, effectively breaking the air of badassery that had enveloped them all for the last ten minutes as it gradually devolves into a full on wrestling match.

“I’m terrifying,” Jamie whines, caught in her big sister’s headlock and Cam can sympathize, having been put in several Jordie Benn headlocks of her own over the years of manning the front counter of Benn Baking Co. “Jordie, you’re ruining my air of mystique… and my hair.”

“I’ve held your hair back while you puked Jello shots through your nose, Chubbs,” Jordie says, ruffling her sister’s carefully styled hair out of pure spite. “You haven’t had an air of mystique in years.”

***

  
Jamie is feeling pretty good when she pulls up to the gates of Tyler’s house and punches in the security code. In fact, she’s feeling so good it takes her a few seconds to realize that the car parked in the circular driveway isn’t Carey’s rental. Tyler had mentioned something about his agent swinging by so she doesn’t think too much about it as she beeps the truck locked and walks up the steps into the house.

“Babe, you here?” she calls, kicking the door shut behind her. Cash greets her in the foyer, tail wagging, but there’s no sight of Marshall. She ruffles his ears and unbuttons her blazer with the other hand, tugging the silky fabric of her shirt out of the waist of her pants.

“In the front living room,” she stops at the tone of his voice, distant and without its usual warmth. Cash’s tail hasn’t stopped wagging, but Jamie suddenly has the sense that something is very wrong.

Her concerns are given life as she steps into the living room and finds Tyler sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs with Marshall draped across his feet. Across from him, seated on the couch is a petite pretty blonde woman wearing a white sundress with a blue cardigan, a coffee mug sitting on the coffee table in front of her.

The physical resemblance to Danny is uncanny.

“Hi,” Jamie says, forcing her mouth into an expression that Jordie calls her ‘mannequin smile’ and steps forward, holding out a hand. She can’t bring herself to look at Tyler, not with the complete and utter wrongness of the situation screaming in the air around her. “You must be Danny’s mom.”

“I’m Sarah,” the other woman says and shakes her hand, but her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Jamie takes a step back from the couch, still looking at Sarah even though she can feel Tyler’s eyes boring into the side of her face.

“I didn’t realize you were in town,” Jamie says and it’s not an accusation, but there’s ‘surprises’ and then there’s ‘coming home to find the mother of your boyfriend’s son in the living room’.

“I was invited.” Sarah says simply as if those three words aren’t like a knife through Jamie’s aching heart. “Tyler and I were just talking about next steps.”

It’s a herculean effort to look at Tyler, but Jamie does it somehow. Tyler looks like he’s taken a puck between the eyes, stunned and a little angry and Jamie feels the burn of tears forming behind her eyes, blinks fiercely to keep them back.

“That’s great,” she says and knows the enthusiasm sounds fake. “I just came back to get, um, my… uh, phone charger.” To Tyler, she says, “The thing with the photos is over, in case you were still worried. We caught the guy,”

“You caught-?” Tyler’s forehead wrinkles in confusion as if he’s waking up from a dream and Jamie knows that the attention he’d once focused so intently on her is completely shattered.

“Yeah, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna go, okay?” Jamie turns back to Sarah who is watching the exchange with the detached interest of someone watching a tennis match. Tyler still hasn’t moved, one of his hands now buried in the ruff of Cash’s neck.

“It was lovely to meet you,” Jamie says without looking at Tyler again and turns on her heel to leave.

‘ _ Say something,’  _ she begs silently as she walks out of the living room. ‘ _ Stop me, Tyler. Please don’t let me leave,’ _

But only silence follows her out of the room.

***

Trish barely has enough time to register that Jamie’s been crying before her ex-wife kicks the front door shut behind her and grabs Trish by the front of the sweatshirt, hauling her in for a desperate kiss.

For a moment, it’s all heat and Jamie’s hands buried deep in her hair and their bodies pressed together in an achingly familiar way, but then Trish comes back to her senses with the taste of salt on her tongue and Jamie’s body tense under her hands. It’s an effort to drag her mouth away from Jamie’s, especially as the younger woman whines at the lack of contact which honestly would break a lesser person, but eventually Trish gets enough space between the two of them to say, “Sweetheart, what the fuck,”

And just like that Jamie is crying, hard enough that she can barely put one foot in front of the other. Trish leads her into the living room, guiding her onto the couch, only to find herself with a lapful of sobbing Jamie seconds later.

“Okay, baby, it’s gonna be okay; I’ve got you,” she says, rubbing her hand down Jamie’s back and pressing a kiss to her head as her ex-wife cries her heart out in her arms.

Jamie cries until she’s practically dead-weight in Trish’s arms, face buried in the crook of Trish’s neck. Knowing how well pushing for answers will work out, Trish just sits there quietly until Jamie finally lets out a shuddery sigh and sits up, bracing herself on Trish’s shoulder.

“Sorry I shoved my tongue down your throat,” she murmurs, not making eye contact and Trish rolls her eyes.

“I mean, it’s not the first time you’ve showed up at my front door and tried to make out with me,” Trish says with a shrug. “I mean, last time you were white-girl wasted on mimosas and the next morning we filed for divorce, but this doesn’t even make the top five, babe.” 

Jamie flushes red and moves to slide onto the couch, but Trish is ready for this move and catches her by the hips, holding her in place. It’s easier to duck down and look up into Jamie’s red tear-soaked eyes now and finally, finally Jamie looks at her.

“I don’t know what happened, but whatever it is, it’s not make-out with your ex bad,” she gives Jamie a little shake as she speaks. “So spill, Chubbs.”

Jamie gives another little shuddery sigh and starts talking.

***

Jordie is sitting on his front steps when Tyler pulls into the driveway and there’s a moment where he seriously considers turning around and driving back out his front gate, but he’s not entirely certain that Jordie won’t find him wherever he goes, so he puts the SUV in park and gets out of the car.

“You jackass,” she says when he gets nearer and then without warning, she’s on her feet and in his face, giving him a hard two-handed shove. “You motherfucking jackass.”

Tyler is not going to dispute the jackass thing, has been thinking the same thing himself since Jamie walked out of his house and he’d let her do it.

Luckily, any further self-flagellation is abruptly curtailed by a sharp blinding pain in his face, the crunch of cartilage and the warmth of moisture trickling out of his nose and down his lips.

“Yeah, I guess I deserved that,” he gurgles, pressing his hand against the blood spilling out of his nostrils. Jordie just stands there glaring at him, one hand still balled into a fist at her side.

“Okay, I definitely deserved that,” he says and wipes at the blood on his face. “I’m an idiot and I should have stopped her.”

He must look a special kind of pitiful because rather than hit him again, Jordie just throws her hands in the air and drags him inside. Tyler doesn’t try to say anything else until he’s seated at the kitchen island with an icepack pressed against his aching nose, Jordie leaning against the counter across from him. 

“Where’s Jamie?” he asks and then winces as it jars his throbbing face which just makes him cringe more. Jordie glances at the phone at her elbow, the screen showing a host of notifications popping up and then very pointedly turns it over so he can’t see it.

“We’re not talking about my little sister right now, Seguin. We’re talking about whatever fucking telenovela bullshit you’re wrapped up in right now,” Jordie all but growls and leans forward. Tyler’s maybe 76% sure she’s not going to hit him again, but that number is a little shaky given the anger in her eyes. “So I’m going to ask some questions and you’re going to answer them because I’ve seen the way that you look at my sister and I don’t think there’s any malicious intent happening on your part, just sheer stupidity.”

“Probably,” a new voice says from the doorway and Tyler carefully turns his head to see Carey coming into the kitchen with the officer from Dallas PD who seems just sort of be places nowadays, usually around Tyler’s house. Officer Bishop isn’t in uniform today, instead wearing a Dallas Cowboys t-shirt and cargo shorts and a bemused expression. “Hockey players are well known for being stupid.”

“I mean, I didn’t stop my girlfriend from walking out the house after my ex-girlfriend showed up out of nowhere, so I’m probably the definition of stupid,” Tyler says and even with the icepack muffling his voice, he knows the message gets across because Jordie loses some of the angry tightness around her eyes.

“The girlfriend do that?” Bishop asks, nodding towards what Tyler thinks is probably going to be some pretty spectacular bruising.

“Girlfriend’s big sister,” Jordie says, arching an eyebrow at the officer, a challenging look on her face. “You gonna arrest me?” Tyler makes eye contact with Carey across the kitchen and tries to convey ‘what is going on?’ without moving any part of his face. The dark haired woman just shakes her head and comes over to slip onto the bar stool next to Tyler.

“I’m not technically on duty today,” Bishop says, glancing between Jordie and Tyler with a vaguely pained expression on his face. “But if Mr. Seguin wants-“

“Nope, Mr. Seguin definitely does not want.” Tyler says, letting the icepack fall onto the counter as he pushes to his feet, waving his hands to dispel any kind of accusations that might be lingering there. “Mr. Seguin is an idiot who did something very stupid and absolutely deserved to get punched in the face by Jordie and does not want her to be arrested.”

“Oh good,” Carey says, picking up the ice pack and holding it out to him even as she gives Jordie a pointed look. “I think that would probably be an awkward way to end your first date.”

“I do hate to have to post bail before asking for a second date,” Office Bishop says and Jordie blushes and honestly, this isn’t even the strangest thing to happen to Tyler this week.

“You want to hang with this crew, get ready for the weird,” Jordie tells the police officer and turns her attention back to Tyler. “Put that ice pack back on your nose, dumbass and let’s talk.”

***

“Seriously, Nikki? I know you don’t have coverage for every single installation that we have contracts with.” Jamie snarls as she paces Trish’s front room. On the couch, Trish looks up from her phone and arches an eyebrow at Jamie as if to say ‘what the fuck.’ Jamie flaps a hand at the other woman, unwilling to be deterred from her very important task of getting Nikki to deploy her somewhere out of the country.

It’s a good plan and honestly, if she can land a posting somewhere that has a lot of action, then she won’t have to think about how much her heart feels like it’s breaking all over again. She squeezes her eyes shut tight as the burn of tears threatens again, ruthlessly clamping down the ache in her chest. It takes her a second to realize that Nikki is speaking.

“…play a game called ‘rearranging the deployment schedule to help my staff avoid their feelings’. It’s honestly my favorite thing to do.” Nikki says with a level of sarcasm that Jamie doesn’t really think is deserved. “But even if I wanted to, there’s at least two different cartels in South America who wouldn’t mind shooting you the minute you stepped off a plane even if it’s in another country. Deploying you right now would be incredibly irresponsible.”

“Nikki-,” Jamie starts and is interrupted by a sharp click on the other end of the line. “Nikki?” 

Silence.

“The fuck?” Jamie says with genuine confusion and turns towards Trish who is still texting at rapid speed.

“You know what happens when you push Backy too far,” her ex looks up at her with a sympathetic expression. “Revolutionary thought though: you could just talk to him.”

“Revolutionary thought: you suck,” Jamie grumbles as she shoves her phone into her pocket.

“Wow, Jamie, I’m hurt.” Trish dead-pans, glancing back down at her phone and then stands up off the couch, stretching like a cat before sauntering towards the kitchen. “Your words cut deep,” drifts out of the hall behind her.

“Trish?” Jamie asks, the irritation with Nikki draining away as quickly as it had come, leaving her feeling raw. Trish must hear it in her voice because she appears in the living room doorway a few seconds later.

“Did we not work because of me?” her voice wobbles traitorously at the end and Trish’s eyes close for a second, a pained look crossing her face before she’s crossing the living room and pulling Jamie into her arms. Jamie clings, fingers wrapped tight in the back of Trish’s shirt, face pressed into her collarbone as she breathes in her ex-wife’s familiar scent.

“If we were a Facebook status, I think it would be ‘it’s complicated’ and then a bunch of weird emojis,” Trish says against her hair before pulling back enough to look Jamie in the eyes. One of her thumbs brushes across Jamie’s cheek, gentle and affectionate. “But no, babe. We didn’t ‘not work out’ because of you. I think I’m at a point in my life where I can finally admit that this is an 80/20 split on my part as far as fault goes.” 

Jamie frowns at that, reaching up to hold Trish’s face in her hands, forcing the other woman to look into her eyes.“I love you, you know that, right?” Jamie says because sometimes she thinks she doesn’t say it enough when they were together. Trish laughs, a little sad, but mostly happy.

“And I love you too, Jamie, but…” Jamie whines a little as Trish steps out of her grasp, half-turning towards the living room doorway. “There’s someone else I think you need to be having this particular feelings talk with.”

Tyler steps into the living room doorway, sporting a rapidly blackening eye and a swollen nose and looking as unsure as she’s ever seen him.

“I take it back,” Jamie says, still staring at Tyler who is staring right back. “You’re a dick, Sharpy and I don’t love you at all.”

Trish just grins that same rakish grin that had drawn Jamie to her in the first place and walks towards the entryway, pausing by Tyler to lean in and tilt his head down so she can get a better look at his nose. “She got you pretty good, huh?”

“Yep,” Tyler says, still staring at Jamie. “But I definitely had it coming.” Trish nods and then leans up on her toes to gently buss her lips across his cheek before shotting one last wink at Jamie and disappearing from sight. A few seconds later, Jamie hears the front door shut and silence falls over the living room. Jamie can’t look away from Tyler, can’t find it in herself to quash the spark of hope burning in her chest.

He’d let her leave, but here he stood.

“I figured I’d start with apologizing for being the world’s biggest idiot,” Tyler says finally, breaking the silence that’s enveloped them. “And then I’d move on to telling you that there is nothing going on with me and Sarah and then I’d tell you that Danny is head over heels for you and I’d finish by telling you that I am so in love with you, Jamie Benn and there’s no way I’m going to let you go.”

“Oh yeah?” she says and her voice wavers as Tyler starts to walk towards her across the living room. “And then what?”

“I figured we could make out after all of that,” he says with a smile and Jamie can’t stop the watery laugh that comes out as she reaches for him as soon as he gets close enough.

He’d let her leave, but he’d followed and intellectually, Jamie didn’t know what to do with that, but her heart did, her fingers clutching the front of his shirt so tightly that they nearly cramped.

“God Jamie,” he whispers into her hair, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other arm wrapped tightly around her waist. “I’m so sorry; I never should have let you walk out that door.”

Jamie suddenly can’t speak, tears spilling from under her eyelids and she just buries her face in the side of his neck, holding on as tight as she can. They stand like that, Tyler murmuring gentle words in her ear as he holds her, one big hand rubbing slowly up and down her back and Jamie just... lets it all go. She’d thought that she was all cried out, but the tears that stain the front of his shirt tell a different story. 

Eventually though, Tyler nudges her towards the couch and tugs her down next to him, their legs pressed together and their entwined hands resting on his thigh and because they’re mature (ish) adults, they talk.

Tyler tells her that he’d come home from practice to find Sarah waiting outside the gate to his house and that she’d told him she wanted to be a part of Danny’s life again and she was so glad that he’d had his agent reach out to her. He tells her that he had told Sarah that anyone who had reached out on his behalf was lying and that she’d had her chance at life with Danny, choosing to walk away instead of being involved.

Jamie fills in what she knows as they go: that the PR guy had been trying to drum up positive press for the Stars and had figured that Tyler demonstrating his responsible side as a parent was a great angle, but the photographer he’d leaked Tyler’s address too had turned around and sold the photo of the three of them to Deadspin and thrown a wrench in his plans. Danny’s birth mother had clearly been a last desperate bid to regain control of the situation.

“Also I’m having Nikki come out and do a security assessment of your property,” Jamie says, aiming for a tone that offers no room for argument. “Because no one should have been able to get inside the property at any point.”

“Have I met Nikki?” Tyler asks. “Because I don’t think I have, but Sharpy said she’s the only one in the entire company that she wouldn’t mess with.” Jamie snickers, squeezing his hand.

“Nikki used to be involved in some… less than legal activities?” she says, searching for the right words to use that aren’t going to freak Tyler out, but to be fair, he hadn’t run when he met her ex-wife so she imagines telling him about Nikki’s criminal past won’t chase him off.. “Danni poached her from doing contracting work for Interpol and just never gave her back.”

“So, she’s scary?” he asks.

“Christ no,” Jamie says as the sound of the front door opening reaches her ears. “Sharpy’s just scared of her because Nikki once broke into her fifth floor apartment without tripping the alarm and booby-trapped her shower with hot pink dye.”

Whatever Tyler’s going to say next is interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and someone clearing their throat loudly.

“You guys better not be having sex on my new couch;  _ I _ haven’t even had sex on that couch yet.” Trish’s voice echoes down the hall and Jamie can’t bite back her giggles, burying her face in Tyler’s chest as he starts to laugh too, the sound rumbling out of him

“I swear to god, Jamie…”

***

“This feels like a hostage exchange,” Jordie mutters and honestly Tyler’s never been in a hostage exchange, but he’s willing to bet at least two of the women he’s standing with have been, so he’ll take their word for it. The only difference is that there’s no actual hostages here, just a sad looking Carey Price and a visibly worried PK Subban, having a hushed conversation in the hall that runs between the two locker rooms.

He’s standing in a line with Jamie and Jordie, and across from them, standing in a line behind PK are Ryan Johansen, Pekka Rinne, and Roman Josi, all wearing their game day suits. He thinks they’re there as moral support for PK and not as back-up in case a scuffle breaks out, but he highly doubts it would be a fair fight.

He’s seen that YouTube video of Jamie, not to mention the fact that his nose is still sore from Jordie’s right hook.

The hockey players wouldn’t even know what hit them.

In their own little world, PK takes Carey’s hand, their fingers tangling together before he pulls her into his arms. Their words have been too quiet to hear, but their body language speaks volumes. The tension falls out of Carey’s shoulders as PK kisses her forehead and the way the two of them lean into each other is a special kind of intimacy that Tyler had missed before he’d found Jamie again.

“Awww,” Jamie says as if she can read his mind, leaning her head against his shoulder. Tyler looks down at her, unable to bite back a grin that she returns.

“God, you two are nauseating already,” Jordie says with a put-upon look and a shake of her head. 

“Oh right,” Jamie snarks back. “Like you didn’t drop an entire tray of cookies on the floor the other day when Ben came in.” The sideways glare that Jordie shoots at her just makes Jamie grin and Tyler snickers quietly in her ear. But before any further arguing can happen, PK and Carey approach, hand in hand. 

“Hey bud,” Jamie chirps, pulling away from Tyler to greet the couple. His girlfriend hugs the hockey player, squeezing tight before leaning over and kissing Carey on the cheek. “You figure stuff out with my best girl?”

“I think so,” PK says and he’s smiling, but he looks a little dazed. Tyler remembers the feeling, torn between feeling happy about being a father and terrified at the prospect of that much responsibility. He thinks that he and PK are going to be talking a lot during the next few months. 

“I am also the clear choice for godmother,” Jamie says, giving Carey a Look. “Don’t try and let Eks talk you out of it. She and Connor have started at least three kitchen fires between the two of them and I don’t think they’d know what to do with a dirty diaper.”

“Eh, I was thinking I’d ask Sharpy; I bet she’s got some untapped god-parenting potential,” Carey says, a wicked glint in her eyes and Jamie squawks in outrage, grabbing for her friend which leads to an impromptu scuffle between the two that Carey wins by darting around PK’s bulk and smacking Jamie on the ass.

“Rude,” Jamie says, retreating to Tyler’s side. He wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her close. “So rude, Pricey. I can’t believe this sheer and utter betrayal.”

“Better believe it, Benny,” Carey says, tucking herself under PK’s arm in a mirror of her friend, the defenseman smiling down at her, the two of them so clearly in love. “Aunt Trish has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“So rude,” Jamie pouts up at Tyler, her eyes sparkling in spite of the downturn of her lips.

Tyler wants so much, wants to make sure she understands the warmth blooming in his chest and the way that his heart suddenly feels too small with how strongly he feels about her.

He wants her to know that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her, growing old and gray, watching Danny grow up, being there with them every step of the way.

Tyler wants her to know how much he loves her.

But right now, he wants to kiss her.

So he does.

***

**Prologue: (One Year Later…)**

“Jesus kid,” Trish says, using her cell phone flashlight to illuminate the darker corners of the AAC hallway they’ve been playing catch in. “You’ve got a wicked arm.”

“Aunt Jordie says I should play t-ball with Alec next year,” Danny says, crawling around on the floor behind her, poking under equipment tables and stacks of chairs, looking for the ball that they’d lost after he’d winged it at her head and she’d dodged rather than risk a broken nose.

“T-Ball? Not hockey?” Trish asks, getting down on her hands and knees to look under the skate sharpening station.

“Dad says I can play both, even though hockey’s better,” Danny says, scuttling past her down the hall on all fours. “I’m gonna look down here, okay, Aunt Sharpy?” She waves him on, trying to angle her phone light enough to see around the various corners created by chair legs and bench legs, but no such luck.

A pair of socks and slip-on clad feet step into her line of sight and Trish has spent enough time around hockey players to recognize their particular brand of pre-game wear.

“Hey, Seggy, your kid tried to kill me with a freaking tennis ball,” she says scooting backwards out of the stack of chairs, but the deep chuckle she hears definitely doesn’t belong to Tyler Seguin. Glancing up, Trish finds herself looking right into the dark eyes of Jonathan Toews. They’re frozen there for a moment before Trish’s brain kicks back on and she quickly climbs to her feet, trying to brush cobwebs off her blazer.

“Looking for this?” Toews asks with a faint smirk, holding out the tennis ball that’s been hunting for for the last five minutes. Trish reaches for it and their fingers brush as she takes it, Toews holding on a little longer than is absolutely necessary before letting go.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, uncomfortably aware of the twisting feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her attraction to Jamie had been instantaneous, the two of them sizing each other up in a dusty airplane hangar upon their first meeting and it’s a similar sensation now as she looks up into Toews’ dark eyes.

Until she remembers that Toews is all of two years older than Jamie and it starts to feel a little like the universe is trying to remind herself that she’s nearing 40 and that the last time she’d started a relationship with someone younger than her, it had ended in thrown cutlery and tears.

Jamie says it because emotionally Trish is only 15 years old.

Trish has learned to ignore her ex-wife’s words of wisdom.

“Sharpy!” Danny’s voice rings down the hallway and a few seconds later, he races by Toews only to skid to a comical stop beside Trish and whirl around to stare at Toews who blinks right back, surprise widening his eyes.

“Say hello to Mr. Toews,” she says, nudging Danny in the shoulder. She also makes a point to tell Tyler later that his son had gone bug-eyed over meeting a hockey player from a rival team because the chirping potential is just too good.

“Hi Mr. Toews,” Danny chirps on cue, smiling the gap-toothed smile that had conned Trish into playing catch with him earlier. “I’m Danny,”

“Hi Danny,” Trish wants to die a little inside as Toews crouches to put himself at Danny’s level, shorts stretching taut over his muscular thighs. Christ, he cannot be good with kids too. “You can call me Jon.” They shake hands, Danny’s tiny hand engulfed in Toews’ and Trish continues to slowly die inside at the level of cuteness being presented to her.

“You know, I know your name and you know my name, but I don’t know your friend’s name,” Toews says, flashing a look up to Trish who can feel a traitorous heat burning in her cheeks in response. Danny turns to grin up at Trish and then turns back to Toews.

“That’s my Aunt Sharpy,” he says proudly and then pauses. “Well, her name isn’t really Sharpy. It’s Aunt Trish, but I call her Aunt Sharpy cuz that’s what my mom does.”

“Yo Toes! Where ya at?” a man’s voice booms down the hall from the direction of the visitor’s locker room and Toews winces a little as he pushes back to his feet. A few seconds later, a large dark-haired man in Blackhawks themed gear with a thick grey-shot beard and laugh lines around his eyes comes jogging around the corner, slowing when he sees them.

“Hey Seabs,” Toews says almost warily, eyeing his teammate as his teammate in turn eyes Trish and Danny. “Everything okay?”

“I’m Danny,” the five year old offers up and Trish bites down on a sigh because this isn’t exactly a stranger danger situation, but she really wishes that Danny would stop telling everyone her name. “And this is my Aunt Sharpy,”

“Well hi Danny and Aunt Sharpy,” Seabrook says with a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, eyes dancing back and forth between Trish and Toews. “You guys mind if I borrow the Captain here? We’ve got a game to get ready for.”

“Absolutely,” Trish butts in before Danny can say anything else, probably something along the lines of his dad is going to beat them tonight. “We should probably get going too. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Toews.”

“Yeah!” Danny chimes in before Toews can get his mouth open. “It was really great to meet you, Jon!” Trish seriously owes this kid an ice cream.

“It was great to meet you too, bud,” Toews says and then turns his attention back to Trish. “You too,  _ Sharpy _ ,”

It’s been a while since Sharpy has been so very aware that someone is flirting with her.

“Yeah, okay Captain Flirt,” Seabrook says as he hooks an arm around Toews’ neck and starts to pull him back down the hall. “Let’s get your head in the game,”

Toews looks back one last time before he’s pulled around the corner and the only reason that Trish knows that is because she’s looking right back.'

~Fin~


End file.
